Apple’s exclusive messaging experience ‘iMessage’ has always been a favourite, even for those who don’t have an iPhone. The war between blue text message bubbles and green ones is quite old. For quite some time, Android-using companies have been trying to find a way to allow iMessages on Android smartphones. Remember the recent Nothing-Sunbird controversy?
Last week, the Beeper Mini was launched. It was a quick solution that allowed Android users to experience iMessage. It followed a subscription-based model and charged $2 for users to be able to access the app. It hadn’t even been long enough but it seems that Apple had had enough of these attempts and pulled plugs on it.
Simply put, the Beeper Mini was launched as a result of several attempts to reverse engineer Apple’s messaging protocols for iMessages. The people behind the app cracked the way to register a phone number with iMessage, then send messages straight to the Apple servers, and eventually have messages sent back to your phone natively. And all this happened inside the app.
Also read: Nothing decides to bring its own iMessage: Will Apple stay ‘Muted’?
Just a couple of days after its release users started to face technical issues on the Beeper Mini. So, what happened? Yes, you might have guessed it by now. Users were unable to send or receive the blue bubble messages, out of the blue. If you read the Beeper subreddit, users started to report the issues that they were facing.
On Friday afternoon, users were unable to activate their mobile numbers on the Beeper Mini app. This prominently indicates that Apple entered the picture. It seems that Apple has closed whatever loophole the Beeper Mini had accessed to run its application.
Also read: Google trolled Apple over SMS feature yet again: Here’s why
Speaking of the issue, Apple said, “At Apple, we build our products and services with industry-leading privacy and security technologies designed to give users control of their data and keep personal information safe. We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage. These techniques posed significant risks to user security and privacy, including the potential for metadata exposure and enabling unwanted messages, spam, and phishing attacks. We will continue to make updates in the future to protect our users.”
