A developer sent Eric Migicovsky direct messages earlier this year, boasting that he had reverse-engineered Apple’s iMessage system to enable any device—Android, Windows, whatever—to send messages in the form of a blue bubble. Migicovsky found what he was reading to be unbelievable.
“Bullshit, nobody has done that,” I uttered. “Nobody on the planet has accomplished that,” stated Migicovsky, CEO of Beeper, a messaging business. He had attempted to do it independently and messaged anyone he could locate who had ever come near. “No one had managed to connect the dots.”
But suddenly, this 16-year-old high school student coder was in his direct messages (DMs), connecting him to a prototype. It was successful.
The new Android software, Beeper Mini, which Migicovsky’s business is releasing today, was inspired by that prototype. Launching the program will examine every text message exchange you have, identify those from iMessage users, and convert them to blue bubble exchanges on Apple’s messaging service. From then on, you will be using iMessage, and the recipient will not know the difference between when you message an iPhone user via Beeper Mini.
No group chats broke, or messages were lost.
After using the app for a few weeks, I’ve been astonished by how well it functions. Pixel 8’s Beeper Mini messages appear as blue bubbles on my friends’ and relatives’ iPhones. As soon as someone posted a meme, my group discussions instantly shifted to iMessage. Threads, photographs, videos, and reactions flowed through (without the clumsy text message compression). The most excellent feature of Beeper Mini is that hardly anyone noticed I was using it. Blue bubbles magically appeared; there were no missing messages.
As many apps attempt to replicate the iMessage experience on Android, Beeper Mini adds its name to the increasing list. However, Migicovsky insists that Beeper Mini is different from other services since it sends iMessages directly.
Other services, like Beeper’s prior iMessage implementation, would use a Mac hosted in the cloud to transport messages. This presents serious security issues, demonstrated most recently by Sunbird and its Nothing-branded offshoot, Nothing Chats. Four days after significant security flaws were found, Nothing’s app was released and removed; Sunbird removed its app soon after.
Beeper Mini avoids some of those issues since it functions radically differently. The programmers could set up a phone number for iMessage, transmit messages straight to Apple’s servers, and have notes returned to your phone within the app itself. Deconstructing Apple’s message system from the ground up was a challenging procedure. The Beeper team had to determine how to retrieve the communications from the cloud, where to deliver them, and what format they should take. According to Migicovsky, determining whether the connected device is a legitimate Apple product—Apple’s system-wide padlock—was the most challenging aspect of the process.
Migicovsky wrote to me over iMessage, saying, “We jailbroke iPhones then dove deep into the OS to see how everything worked.” “After that, we started from scratch, writing new code to replicate every feature in our Android app.”
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Your contacts, passwords, and messages are hidden from Beeper.
Migicovsky claims that the result is a third-party iMessage implementation that is genuinely safe because Beeper cannot view your contacts, messages, or Apple ID password. (You do not even need to log in.) He claims it is merely connecting to Apple’s servers, much like an iPhone.
Migicovsky is aware that potential users’ first concern will be security. Migicovsky said Beeper’s iMessage code will be available for public inspection to ease worries. Brad Murray, CTO of Beeper, also tried to breach the system for a while, acting as an attacker, and he is now sharing his results.
How long Beeper Mini can live may be the more important question. Migicovsky maintains that there is no Apple code in the Beeper Mini and that he is acting legally. He also points to a copyright carveout for reverse engineering. He thinks Apple would find it impossible to disable Beeper without simultaneously disrupting iMessage for millions of authentic Apple devices. I don’t know on either count. Apple fiercely defends iMessage as an iPhone lock-in feature, and it’s difficult to see the business ignoring the plethora of iMessage apps from third parties indefinitely.
In any case, Migicovsky claims he last heard something from Apple almost three years ago, and Beeper has been running the less secure type of iMessage relay. When The Verge asked Apple for a statement regarding third-party iMessage apps, Apple did not reply.
When Beeper launched in 2021, it promised to create a single location for all your messages. The company has raised $16 million to reach that objective and expanded to employ roughly 20 individuals. The 16-year-old engineer who disassembled iMessage is currently employed as a contractor by Beeper. Migicovsky declined to provide more information about the student, citing privacy concerns. The student’s GitHub page indicates that he resides in Pennsylvania.
The release of Beeper Mini coincides with an unusual development for both Beeper and iMessage: Apple just announced that it will implement the RCS messaging standard, which will enable cross-platform texting with many of the primary features of iMessage, including high-quality images, read receipts, and eventually encryption. Once those features are available, Beeper’s primary function will be to provide you with that desired blue bubble.
Most individuals were unaware that the bubbles had become blue.
In my experience, the majority of the individuals I messaged were oblivious. The group discussion went on. Images appeared. All the colors of the messages were distinct. Naturally, that is the entire point of the artificiality surrounding the blue/green bubble division. Finding the odd one out is frequently more important than being able to strike up a conversation. That didn’t matter to me, but it will for many others. Beeper Mini might be helpful for those who feel unfairly penalized by their green bubbles.
Initially, the service will provide access to iMessage and cost $2 per month. According to Migicovsky, Beeper Mini will eventually do away with the “Mini” branding and incorporate every other chat service available on Beeper’s main app, including Signal, WhatsApp, and Messenger, among others, which have all been hacked to function under a single handy interface. My main gripe is that Beeper Mini is a one-day, all-in-one app that splits my messaging experience in half because it doesn’t support SMS and RCS. Bundling in SMS and RCS is on the horizon, according to Migicovsky. However, the cost of all those added services might increase slightly.
Though RCS will soon be available in iMessage, Migicovsky believes Beeper will continue to play a significant role. “The long-term vision is an app that allows you to have global conversations with anyone,” he states. Beeper needs to work hard to keep them all connected, but it’s a fantastic objective.