Beeper Mini launched Tuesday as a new messaging app from the startup led by former Pebble co-founder Eric Migicovsky. The app allows users on Android smartphones to access Apple's iMessage service for a small monthly fee. British startup Nothing recently launched a short-lived chat app that offered similar functionality, which was quickly pulled from the Play Store after significant backlash over privacy concerns. Beeper's new app appears to sidestep most of these privacy concerns, as it works locally on a user's smartphones and can function even without an Apple ID.
According to a technical in-depth analysis published on the company's website, the Beeper Mini app is a standalone app for Android smartphones, instead of using a cloud server to pass messages like the older Beeper Cloud app from Company. Beeper says it reverse-engineered both Apple's iMessage protocol and end-to-end encryption (E2EE) with the help of a 16-year-old high school student and security researcher known as “JJTech.”
Controlling the app locally means that neither Beeper nor Apple can see the contents of messages sent to iMessage users via Beeper Mini, the company claims. The app also connects directly to Apple's servers, allowing users to send messages that appear as blue bubbles to iMessage users, while also supporting features such as read receipts, typing indicators, sending high-quality media, stickers, reactions, voice memos and GIFs . According to Beeper, it even supports undoing or editing messages.
This is in stark contrast to Nothing Chats, which was created in partnership with another company called Sunbird, which used users' Apple ID details to log into a server farm with several Mac mini units to give them access to iMessage – both companies revoked access to their apps after security flaws were revealed.
After downloading the Beeper Mini app, users will need to sign in with their Google account to verify their subscription status and give the app permission to send notifications for new messages, access contacts to discover other iMessage users, and send SMS -access to sign up for iMessage. Meanwhile, Beeper Mini generates encryption keys to enable E2EE for iMessage chats.
The price for Beeper Mini is set at $1.99 (approximately Rs. 160) per month, and the app offers users a seven-day trial period for new users. If you try out the service and at some point no longer want to use it, you can unsubscribe your number on Apple's website to continue receiving text messages from iMessage users.
Signing in with your iCloud credentials is optional, according to Beeper, and doing so will allow you to send messages from your email address (this means you can also send messages from another Apple device). The company says all login details are sent securely to Apple and are not stored.
It's worth noting that Beeper is not an open source app, meaning users will essentially trust the company's claims until a security audit is completed. In the meantime, the company points to JJTech's blog post detailing how Apple's system works, as well as its proof-of-concept for computers written in Python that allows users to test the feature without Apple hardware. The company plans to add support for 15 other chat networks over time as Beeper Mini transitions to Beeper's main app, replacing Beeper Cloud.