> Beeper could have come up with a new messaging app for iOS.
But the point of Beeper was to bring iOS compatibility to non-Apple devices. There’s a literal XKCD comic about creating new standards.
> They didn’t have to reverse-engineer iMessage.
Sure. But that’s not a reason not to do something. The literal same remark can be used against Apple too:
“Apple didn’t need to break support for Beeper”
“Apple didn’t need to make iMessage proprietary”
Etc
For what it’s worth, I’m not against Apple per se. In fact I’m typing this on an iPhone. I’m just commenting about how locked in messaging has become and how it’s weird that people are ok with that (or more precisely, only ok with it when it’s an Apple protocol).
I’m just not sure what your point is? That beeper should just be allowed to do this, just because they wanted to?
I don’t have a dog in this fight. I’m an Apple user and I don’t really use iMessage deep enough to have issues talking to Android users.
I’ve just seen Beeper being incredibly entitled about another company’s service that they’re not paying for throughout this whole process.
As a previous startup founder and a developer (which is HN’s primary user-base), I just think it was obvious which way this was going to go.
And saying that making a service closed is equitable to reverse-engineering said service is a weird take. Should every non-public service be allowed to be attacked like this?
Honestly, I’m not sure I have a point. I was just commenting on what I’ve observed as a double standard on here.
If I were to comment on the Beeper thing specifically, I think they were wrong to make it a commercial project (something they’ve now rectified). But I think Apple are wrong to break Beeper too (though I get why they did).
I think there is enough blame to go round to all parties involved.
Ok, that's fair. But what should Apple do in response? If they did not break it the first time, Beeper would be making $2-3/month off of their services.
It would have also shown that Apple's platform isn't as secure as they position themselves to be if someone other than them can utilize their services without their permission.
There was no winning move here for Apple except to close access off to secure their closed protocol. It was just inevitable at that point.
Is it really a security problem though? Something can be secure and support 3rd party clients. More likely this is just a walled garden problem. Because if it was just a security problem then Apple would have released a 1st party iMessage app for Android before now.
This doesn't answer your question though. I guess what I'd have liked to have seen is Apple release a public iMessage API. I know that would never happen, but one can dream. The approach Apple took was certainly predictable. I have no sympathy for Beeper either.
