New Beeper Android app – Open beta test

[mcsniff]

I want to use Beeper, but funneling all my communications through hosted bridges (especially so Signal) is gonna be a nope, until they release more very deep technical and verifiable information about how on-device bridges work.

I'm big on unified messaging from the libpurple days, but now 99% of my chats are in Signal so perhaps I am just not the target demographic for this.

[erohead]

On-device bridging works like this https://blog.beeper.com/p/how-beeper-mini-works. We'll put together a full technical deep dive for the real launch, this is just an open beta. Our signal bridge code is open source: https://github.com/mautrix/signal

You don't have to use our hosted bridges, we've made it ridiculously easy to self host: https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager

[Ambroisie]

When looking at their bridge documentation for my own homeserver, I noticed that they do provide a way to self-host the bridges to be used with Beeper's homeserver as well.

See https://github.com/beeper/bridge-manager

[anyekwest]

I use texts.com instead, honestly has worked better for me than beeper

[raybb]

You may be interested in a feature in the new app:

> On-Device Signal Bridge

Haven't tried it yet.

[traspler]

I really hope that in the future such bridges can run in secure enclaves to protect the re-encrypt step.

[septic-liqueur]

Lol how'd you get 99 percent of your chats on Signal I envy you

[ForHackernews]

Interesting! Anyone here remember Pidgin? It was such a fantastic app for chatting with friends on AIM, MSN, ICQ, gchat (XMPP), and IRC all from one interface. It even had an "off the record" (OTR) plugin that was an early example of end-to-end encryption.

It was a good illustration of how an open source app could surpass all the proprietary alternatives because it wasn't subject to the same incentives as a commercial company. Although obviously all those companies wised up and killed XMPP...

[ChainOfFools]

Remember? Pidgin is still a core piece of infrastructure in our company's managed services platform, and not for lack of interest "upgrading" but because it's just exactly the right tool for the job for certain kinds of internal company messaging, with self-hosted XMPP.

Completely defining your own secure perimeter by self hosting everything possible makes for extremely perfunctory audits by regulatory bodies for the industries (finance, mainly) we support.

[szszrk]

Pidgin was (is) great, but that was possible with jabber transports on any client. I had multiple major closed networks, blogging platform, RSS, IRC and more in one jabber/xmpp client. Cli, phone, second computer... No problem, including self hosted.

Miss those days when companies didn't invest into building walled gardens.

[l72]

I still use pidgin daily for Slack. I've even written a libpurple custom protocol for our own homegrown app.

[shrimp_emoji]

https://www.bbc.com/pidgin

[wnevets]

> On-device iMessage bridge (like Beeper Mini) is not enabled at this time.

Wasn't this the reason to use beeper on android?

[MBCook]

It’s the reason they made the news.

Their ability to bridge other networks may be useful to you. It’s what they did before the iMessage thing.

I agree though a ton of their possible demand is gone now due to that. Add in RCS later this year, and even if iMessage came back I’m not sure it would be worth it to many.

But hey. I didn’t know they existed before that. I do now. That’s something. I also distrust their judgement based on their actions. But I’m sure that not true for everyone who now knows they exist.

[yoavm]

I use Beeper on Android to have one app through which I send messages on WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram etc. I never cared for iMessage support.

[hbn]

It was one of the features, but it's existed for a while outside of the iMessage support. It just got a lot of eyes on it when they got the iMessage hack working (which Apple broke last I heard, not sure the current state of it)

[Rebelgecko]

For me, the killer feature is being able to keep up with my various non-SMS/MMS/RCS conversations (with prompt notifications) without having to install the Facebook app et al

[neodymiumphish]

I switched from Android to iOS for the first time ever last month (was on Android since the very early 2010s), and I still use Beeper for everything but iMessages.

[flancian]

I've been an early access user for a few months and I'm really enjoying Beeper -- I hope they continue to deliver like this and can scale the operations as needed.

I currently use through it: Telegram, WhatsApp, RCS (Android Messages), Signal.

Beeper is built on Matrix and their client is based on Element but I would say the experience is slightly better than native; for example I prefer how client verification works in Beeper over vanilla Element.

Congrats on the open beta!

[meowtimemania]

How does beeper work? Do I have to give beeper full access to all the different accounts I use for messaging?

[wkat4242]

Not if you self host the bridges and set them to end to end encryption (not sure if they all support that yet though)

[stavros]

Yes.

[ZephyrOhm]

Why do we need a Google account for this service ? What's the point of allowing an app to be independent and E2EE if everything is also linked to Google Accounts? When will the software community stop automatically utilizing the most dominate services for every implementation Is there a service similar to Beeper that doesn't require a Google account?

[arcastroe]

I want to try it, but I don't want to become dependent on it if it will transition to a paid product in the future (It's cool, but I probably wouldn't pay for it).

How long will it remain free to use?

[ajross]

That's a reasonable concern, but in practice the likelihood of the product being killed by malicious counterinteroperability games by Apple (and the other proprietary backents too) is far higher than the chance you'll be screwed by the manufacturer.

Beeper isn't in a business that's every going to make them significant money. Their core value proposition is, ironically, that reverse engineering iMessage is "just hard enough". If it becomes too hard, they fail.

But if it becomes too easy, they fail too because everyone will launch Apple-compatible chat apps! In fact the worst case is that the protocols end up standardized, in which case they'll have to compete with genuine open source implementations.

Basically, I'm absolutely in their corner in this fight, but I'd never bet on Beeper as a product.

[septic-liqueur]

I would gladly pay a few bucks a month for such product. It solves a real problem

[SalariedSlave]

now if only I had a small android phone I could install this app on...

[dabluecaboose]

Hoping Eric pops in here like he does on other Beeper threads and sees this. I'm still checking every day for a small android phone.

I found my Xperia z3 Compact in a drawer the other day. It was immediately such a pleasure to hold, I love the concept of having something as powerful as a smartphone in such a small package.

[erohead]

That's the dream...

[kh_hk]

Have you looked into the Jelly Phone? I used mine for over a year until I destroyed the battery. Was definitely small and got used to it pretty quick

[odiroot]

Zenfone 10 is your last chance.

[yellow_lead]

I've been on the wait-list for at least a year I think? "Open beta test" plus a wait-list is quite weird.

[Rebelgecko]

I was on the wait list for a while too (I think my place in the waitlist even went backwards) and someone from HN wat nice enough to hook me up with an invite.

I'm happy to pay it forward, the only caveat is that I think the referral code has to be sent via a chat method that beeper supports. Feel free to email me (HN username @ big G's mail service) with a GChat/WhatsApp/SMS address.

[starik36]

If you get an invite from someone, it jumps you to the front of the line.

[solarkraft]

I'm happy about every new Matrix client! It would be cool if they would release it as FOSS so it could be used generically. There's a painful lack of (average, non-technical) user friendly Matrix clients.

[ryukafalz]

I'm wondering if this app will eventually work with other (e.g. self-hosted) Matrix accounts or if it'll remain locked to Beeper's.

[yoavm]

You can communicate with other self-hosted Matrix accounts already. I think that was always the case.

[GGerome]

I try to register, i receive code, I apply it then unable to register, tried twice, uninstalled this app..

[maelito]

The app tells me I need Google messages to handle SMS.

But I don't want to depend on Google on my phone.

[barrenko]

So all of the messaging apps I use are just damn protocols?

[ranguna]

Always have been

[shock]

Anyone have a referral code? TIA