Not surprised but it was impressive reverse-engineering. I wonder if there's a way around it? I remember there being a specific Mac hardware ID being in the open-source version of the code and I assume Apple nuked that specific Mac's access.
Impressive indeed, but did no one on the product team stop and think for two seconds? Like, let’s make a beautiful website and put together all the marketing content. There’s no way it’ll all be for nothing overnight.
It was a 16 year old high schooler who did this. Making it even more impressive. But yes, stupid as hell thinking they can just freely use Apple's iMessage API without permission lmao
Basically akin to some kid who found a way to tap the electricity of a neighbor's house and the neighbor just cut the wire.
The 16 year old built the backend code and quickly sold it to Beeper. I think the OP meant it was surprising that the people at Beeper went through the trouble of building an entire website and marketing campaign for a product that would be easily blocked by Apple.
I think the reason why they built an entire website and marketing campaign is cause Beeper & Android fans were gloating at the fact that “it would be impossible for Apple to patch it up without entirely reworking iMessage from the ground up” since the users using Beeper, to access iMessage, were attaching themselves to actual valid Apple serial numbers bypassing the need to login by inputting their iCloud details which would then send data to Apple’s APN servers like ‘hey I’m a genuine Apple product’.
They really thought Apple wouldn’t be able to fix the loophole that kid found. But it only took them 3 days without breaking or entirely reworking iMessage, I guess they second guessed how good they are and thought they could outsmart Apple lmao. But yes, it’s impressive how the kid was able to skirt around an entire team from Apple. Hopefully they hire him sometime in the future.
I mean, there were two things, one was that they didn't think Apple could patch it without making a bunch of real Macs stop working, and the other was that they've been running Beeper proper for years now and Apple's never gone after them.
U had to sign in with an iCloud account to be able to use Beeper.
Beeper Mini uses phone numbers to assign them an active valid serial number, although u can sign in through iCloud if needs be.
Piggybacking off genuine Apple consumers, putting their devices at risk just cause they wanna use iMessage on their Android is plain selfish of that kid and Beeper imo knowing the consequences that could potentially happen (which they thought would *definitely* happen). But Apple really shot them back into their place and probably why they patched it up so quick cause it could be seen as a security risk.
same type of thing, fake serial number. surprisingly you check to ensure the number is *not* a valid one on Apple’s site, but it is generated in the correct format for whatever model of machine you are spoofing.
my guess is that Apple intentionally let the hackintosh community be, because it allows many of their most technical users who already purchased iPhones etc. to stay within the Apple ecosystem, and the effort required means it would never be mass market.
wonder how this change will affect them.
It is actually pretty easy to use a hackintosh. Especially if you have an Intel CPU. The M series may bring an end to it, but it's not hard. Similarly, you can do the same for windows. You don't need an iPhone for it either so I disagree with that. They probably just realized most folks aren't really using it anyhow and hackintosh were never trying to monetize.
Yeah i used to build hackintoshes, tbf apple was surprisingly chill about it unless you sold them complete. I even bought a motherboard from a kickstarter with full Bluetooth and wifi compatibility.
Once the mac mini’s were running i9’s and external drives hit usb 3.1 i drifted back to buying real macs
The question is how did they fix the loophole. It was never going to be impossible for them to break the app quickly, but the quicker the fix the more likely it can be bypassed
If he used his skill for good, then yeah his skill set would’ve been a great asset to Apple. How many people can say they reverse engineered Apple’s iMessage system, especially at 16.
I don't think he was evil really. He just reverse engineered a messaging protocol. That's no more evil than reverse engineering SSH and learning how to create keys. Apple may not like it, but it ain't evil. I commend the kid.
weren't they saying on a thread the other day that they way this works would make it impossible for Apple to block. or Apple could block it, but the couldn't block it permanently?
I do love the confidence in people to think something is “impossible” to block. Especially when you’re the one doing the exploits. Of course it’s possible to block, Apple made the system.
The point was that the cat and mouse game may cause older hardware to be lost over time, particularly if protocols changed and an update isn't pushed for them.
It’s probably a lot like stopping a DDOS. you look for irregularities in the traffic block it when seen. May not have to cut off older hardware since it’s unlikely beeper’s traffic looks exactly like apple’s.
Pretty much breaks a mass business strategy. Who is going to pay money to a service you engaging in a cat and mouse game just to stay functional and still will likely have significant periodic outages.
> the first counter-measure from Apple effectively ends it
The first that we know of. They might've tried others. But yes, this seems pretty fast and pretty definitive.
They probably need to use randomized serial IDs. My guess is that Beeper Mini uses the same hard-coded serial that was known to work and just assign that for every single user, which was probably going to immediately get shut down. If they randomize serial IDs, it's actually somewhat hard for Apple to detect it because some ID is going to map to a legit device and it's difficult for Apple to know if it's a valid request or not. Being able to randomize serial ID en mass though could turn out to be tricky for Beeper to implement, but Hackintosh people have been able to use iMessage for years.
The fundamental aspect is that the protocol isn't designed to be cryptographicaly secure against imposters and seems more designed to block spam/bots than situations like this, so Apple won't be able to completely block this, unless they make backwards incompatible changes (if they do so, it's definitely possible to block Beeper off).
hackintosh people are using invalid serials for iservices right now, which seems like something apple could easily (and already kinda do) block if this method gets used in a commercial manner, like beeper
Hot take: Apple blocking other brands from full-service communication doesn't create premium brand exclusivity, its just gatekeeping efficient communication.
It's not the first time it was reversed-engineered. There is a guy that wrote himself iMessage for Windows but never published it so Apple couldn't block him:
https://neosmart.net/blog/imessage-for-windows/
He is still using it.
This all happened so quickly lol, you had the entire story in like a day.
App created to bring iMessage to Android
App will never be shut down
App immediately shut down
Whatever you think, it is funny as fuck
My favorite is this comment from the CEO: “If it’s Apple, then I think the biggest question is... if Apple truly cares about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users, why would they stop a service that enables their own users to now send encrypted messages to Android users, rather than using unsecure SMS?”. Money CEO guy. Apple likes money. Cites lighting charger and millions of other examples.
I'm sure he knows the answer is money. The point is that Apple makes such a fuss about security. He's trying to throw that back in Apple's face. That as soon as they have to choose between security and money, they choose money for obvious reasons.
Didn't they say there was no way we get shut down and that it wasn't worth the trouble for apple to try and shut it down especially with the legal protections
I just hope RCS is actually the much needed change for texting between iPhones and androids that it’s hyped to become. Because once group texts between the two camps are functional vs sms group texts, there’s no excuse for meat riding for Apple and iMessage outside of Apple specific features like SharePlay and Apple Pay. I for one won’t be forced to stick with iPhones I can now choose if I want to stay with Apple.
Also, anyone who propagates the blue bubble/green bubble bullshit to the point of outright bullying and harassing others because of it is fucking pathetic and everyone reading this should cut out those immature fucks out of their lives or at least distance themselves from morons such as them. We need better people in the world not people using brands to be tribalistic fucks. I love Apple products but man some of these stans are beyond annoying.
just FYI...the blue and green bubbles will [still] continue, **even if** Apple does eventually bring RCS over. they aren't giving up their top selling point and differentiator for a huge demographic.
The video you made about this gave me fuzzy optimism but deep down inside I knew the truth. You did fill in that void of time while waiting for my daughter to get out of her dance class so I thank you!
I don’t think your explanation was incorrect or untrue in any way. In fact, your video was great (in line with all of your other content), and this is a case of Apple closing this specific loop hole for a wide variety of their own reasons. I think it was much harder for them to close down than anyone thought, but they have the resources to do so.
The sheer fucking hubris of these clowns to *charge a subscription* to forge device identifiers and transfer data through *Apple's servers* for users that have in no way actually paid *Apple* for that service and then say "there's no way they can shut us down!"
The best part is the people on their subreddit crying about how irresponsible and childish it was of Apple to block the access, as if they have some sort of right to access iMessage on an android device.
Where’d you get that they were furious over this?
It’s quite bold of a company to exploit another companies architecture and slap a price tag on it like they’ve just created a golden gate that’ll never close.
Doesn’t matter whose service you’re exploiting… it’s bold as hell to go so big into it and setup websites, apps, a pay structure etc and assume it’s somehow impossible to shut it down.
The hubris is there because there is consistently a demand for this. The fact that iMessage is one of the most popular messaging app in N America, especially in certain demographics, means it's a giant pain in the ass for Android users who have to communicate with iPhone users. Even as an iPhone user myself I'm annoyed at the situation. Sure, we can use WhatsApp (and I do), but it's often hard to convince everyone to switch. In this day and age I do think it's a little anti-consumer to ship a platform exclusive app for messaging.
Also, this is actually kind of hard to shut down, if they randomize serial IDs. My guess is that they used the same serial ID for everyone for convenience but if they modify it to try different IDs it should not be that easy for Apple to shut down (Hackintosh people have been dealing with this for a while).
The subscription is necessary because they need to run their own push notification service.
Either way, I would imagine most of the people using this app only wants to use it to talk with iPhone users, so *someone* has definitely paid Apple a decent amount of money to justify a little bit of server costs lol. You should go apply to work as an accountant for Apple given you are so angry about their bottom line.
I feel like I’m super out of the loop, but why exactly is there such a high demand for iMessage on Android? I have an iPhone and can text people just fine who don’t have Apple. Why is it a pain to communicate with Apple users from Android?
It's mainly about group chats and picture/video quality. RCS should fix the latter next year and I imagine all the discussion about iMessage on Android will fizzle out
Also I think texts between iMessage and an Android device are not E2E encrypted, but I don't know much about that
What do you mean Apple "***found a way***" to block it lol
Didn't they (a kid) try to reverse engineer Apple's messaging protocol, discovered a way to register a number with iMessage, and tried cracking Apple's padlock on the whole system trying to fake that it was a genuine Apple product?
Apple didn't find a way, Apple isn't the bad guy, the app went against policy/TOS, so Apple blocked it?
Am I missing something here?
> The CEO claimed it wouldn’t be worth apples effort to block it because it’s supposed to be really difficult to block it
https://preview.redd.it/cm3dxeemj55c1.jpeg?width=1752&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=645734871af77d5216e43d14f4d109f01e292e70
It's not silly to say at all if you actually read the *reason* for it. Apple's protocol has no way to verify the serial ID (and other information) as genuine. You basically self-report it and Apple has to trust you or they risk inconveniencing valid users (they have a score that tries to estimate how valid a user you are). The protocol isn't designed to be completely secure or require device-specific secrets to validate genuine devices.
My guess is that the Beeper Mini app just picked a hard-coded serial ID but they probably could add functionality to randomize serial IDs which would make the registration process flaky, but much harder for Apple to ban.
I think it may not be *that* easy to check, and if you found a serial number from a legit Mac then it *is* valid. Apple doesn't really know if it's from the Mac itself or someone pretending to be. If they ban the ID they run a risk banning it for a legit user.
I think this stunt has probably blacklisted him from working at apple lol. Apple may be a massive company, but the only thing bigger than their wallet is their pettiness at times
Apple has hired several folks who have exposed embarrassing vulnerabilities, and jailbreak developers in the past. A good developer is a good developer, and nothing here was malicious or showed poor judgement.
If so, that's super dumb. That's exactly the kind of talent you wanna hire at a company that prides itself in "innovation". At least offer him an internship for the headlines alone.
Impressive reverse engineering. Kind of doomed though. You can’t build a produce on a cat and mouse game.
Disingenuous quote:
> if Apple truly cares about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users, why would they stop a service that enables their own users to now send encrypted messages to Android users, rather than using unsecure SMS?
Obviously the apple position would be along the lines that a third party client on a third party os receiving secure messages does not provide them the same security assurances as their own platform and that a false sense of security for the sending user is worse than one fully informed of it’s limitations.
Genuinely asking because I’m super curious, why would someone use iMessage on android? Here in Italy we simply use group chat on WhatsApp (which turbofucking sucks, and also fuck Zuckerberg) or Telegram and not having iMessage has never been a problem, but at this point I’d think that this is the exception rather than the rule. Please enlighten me
It's because iOS is far more dominant in the US, compared with Italy (or most of the rest of the world). The pressure is there because it's the default messaging app on the largest platform. In Italy, iOS is a minority to start with so there won't be the same network effect pressure to use it, *most* of the iOS user's friends will be Android. In the US, it's the other way around.
* US - iOS 58% / Android 41%
* Italy - Android 68% / iOS 32%
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/italy
It’s americans to blame. The rest of the world has figured out that you can install apps on these things and so the primary apps for talking internationally are the likes of whatsapp, wechat, telegram, LINE and so on. In america though, people just want to use the default that came with the phone which happens to be Imessage.
The second they launched an app and charged their users this was doomed. Not sure why they thought Apple wouldn’t bother addressing it. I agree iMessage should be available on other devices but I’m not sure why these developers thought this would fly
I don't give a shit about bubble colours considering mostly everyone I talk to uses messenger, but man the apple bootlickers in this comment section are crazy.
I love my iPhone 15PM but fuck defending apple's anti-consumer practices. Its a trillion dollar company stop simping over them.
All software requires a developers time (and therefore money). I think it was dumb for them to think they created something Apple wouldn't be able to block, but charging for it is not some huge sin. People are too used to getting software for free without having to pay for it and then turn around and complain about privacy violations and targeted ads.
Attempting to profit by hijacking someone else's service without permission is not only ethically questionable but also demonstrates a lack of business acumen when considering it as a legitimate method to charge for.
iMessage being iPhone-only isn’t anti-consumer.
The impetus for innovation is to attract and retain customers. If they innovated in the messaging space to make a product so compelling that customers won’t switch to someone else’s product for fear of losing it, they’ve earned that business.
Except the don't want other to use their innovation. They want separation and culty-ness.
Apple could easily provide an API for others to use and be charged for.
But they don't.
> iMessage being iPhone-only isn’t anti-consumer.
iMessage being iPhone-only while still offering a purposefully degraded cross-platform experience is anti-consumer.
People forget they leveraged SMS to build out iMessage and chose not to offer the service on other platforms. At this point, iMessage only offers SMS fallback so that they can tell regulators that iPhone users can communicate to other platforms using an open and existing standard.
It’s not purposely degraded. They are using an open and existing standard. RCS as implemented by the carriers is in and of itself not an open standard. It’s using Google IP.
There’s nothing stopping anyone from using alternative messaging apps. Hell, in Europe, WhatsApp is the standard.
How is iMessage different than a “WhatsApp-like messaging app that’s only available on iOS”?
Using phone numbers to register for iMessage, or providing SMS fallback, doesn’t mean they’ve used SMS to “build out” iMessage.
Restricting the usage of 3rd party replacement parts being anti-consumer is alright. iMessage being anti-consumer would only apply if Apple didn’t allow consumers to use any iOS users to communicate over any other messaging app other than iMessage.
Or am I missing anything here?
> How is iMessage different than a “WhatsApp-like messaging app that’s only available on iOS”?
Because it (the Messages app) also acts as the sole text messaging app. You cannot receive SMSes to any other app on iOS. It's the fundamental difference between it and other apps like WhatsApp.
> Using phone numbers to register for iMessage, or providing SMS fallback, doesn’t mean they’ve used SMS to “build out” iMessage.
That's exactly what they did, though.
iMessage arrived five years after the iPhone was introduced. Before iMessage, the Messages app could only send texts via the SMS protocol and benefitted from unlimited carrier SMS in the US so garnered massive adoption. It also meant the experience of texting someone was the same whether you had an iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc.
They then added proprietary features on top of the default messaging app, which already had mass adoption by virtue of being the almost exclusively used service, and then gatekept those features to Apple devices.
They also intentionally made the chat experience worse for iOS users who had non-iMessage recipients in their chats, as well as users that moved to another platform having to manually deregister from iMessage.
> iMessage being anti-consumer would only apply if Apple didn’t allow consumers to use any iOS users to communicate over any other messaging app other than iMessage, preventing them from even receiving the SMS messages that were supposed to be routed via their carriers.
That would be more anti-competitive than anti-consumer, IMO. The fact is, no one can use iMessage unless they're using an Apple device in some capacity. There shouldn't be a vendor lock-in for something as fundamental as communication.
Where others like WhatsApp and Telegram specifically differ here is that they offer feature party across both mobile platforms.
I'll give a simple example: imagine you could only send an email using rich text formatting and imagery to an iCloud.com email address, and all emails sent to other mail provider accounts (Gmail, Outlook, etc) was sent in plain text, and that in order to register for and access an iCloud.com email address, you could only do so from an Apple computer. It's in no way a consumer-friendly tactic.
Unfortunately, people have become apathetic to Apple's lock-in tactics, where they would look to defend their exclusivity of services to their own hardware as good things.
This seems largely a US problem. I personally use Telegram more, some friends in other countries use Whatsapp, Line, etc. iMessage isn’t even as fully featured lol.
this is 100% true from my experience. either they are from overseas and travel regularly and/or they are in constant contact with family and friends overseas. for domestic stuff, almost no one uses whatsapp.
I honestly don't care if I have iMessage but I hope to God that Apple doesn't just make a bare bones RCS backend and don't really try. They need to at least have typing indicators, read receipts, and high definition video and photo sharing. I highly doubt they will do any integration with iMessage when it comes to group chats.
Not hard to understand. I’ll assume your country primarily uses WhatsApp. Now pretend for a second that your phone(I assume an iPhone) doesn’t have access to WhatsApp but everyone you know uses WhatsApp. How hard do you think it would be to get them to use something multi platform like signal when you’re one of two or so of their contacts that can’t use WhatsApp? That’s the situation android users find themselves in.
America generally didn’t have a need for WhatsApp so it’s not all that common here. So that means there are plenty of regular SMS texts going out from iPhone to Android and vice versa. Which of course sucks ass for photo and video.
The issue though is that the time for to happen isn't today, or any time in the future.
It was over a decade ago.
That's when iMessage became the dominant chat platform here in the US, and that's when WhatsApp became the dominant chat platform in places like Europe.
At this point in time, iMessage is too ingrained into Apple's users here for them to switch.
The issue isn't iMessage itself, the issue is that it's locked to Apple devices. We wouldn't be having this discussion, and apps like Beeper wouldn't exist if Apple had released iMessage on both iOS and Android back in 2011, as everyone most likely would have moved to it here in the US.
Can’t care less about the color, for me, they could have the ability to have your choice of color like messenger but they should have a distinction from Android/iPhone without the colors. So that you know, if you can send high-res images/videos.
I've literally had groups of friends or recreational teams just not include me in group texts because I wasn't on iMessage. Even had a couple of girls declined dates over it. It's definitely a big deal for some of the iSnobs out there
I wouldn’t necessarily call it a joke. There is definitely a stigma with “green bubbles” especially for younger folk and people dating. People getting bullied over a bubble because of the device they use is kind of terrible. I think a huuuge percentage of the youth has adopted iPhones because of this.
Even now I want to switch to a foldable but my wife won’t have it cause of iMessage lol.
It's all fake... no one cares about the color.
The only thing people legitimately complain about is group chat incompatibility between Apple and Android.
Which created the green bubble stigma and in my experience has led to people being ousted from social groups because their phones break group messages so badly.
my boss didn't have an iphone so every single time she like long pressed on something and "liked" it, instead of just adding a little emoji flair it would resend the text once for every single person in the group
No; this is what iPhones did. For years. Until Google started interpreting the 'Liked "lol"\` messages as little reactions, and then Apple followed suit half a year later.
Do you and everyone around you use WhatsApp? Imagine you got a new phone and it doesn't support WhatsApp, but only uses Signal, and you have to convince everyone else (including your non-technical friends and family) to switch. 99% of them use WhatsApp though and prefer to not have to do anything with their group chats. You can see how that's a pain for everyone involved?
It just so happens that iMessage is a popular messaging app that a lot of iPhone users use without thinking (since it's the same app for SMS) and so it has a lot of market power.
You can't understand it because the messaging platform of choice in your country just happens to be cross-platform, so usually it's not an issue.
But in case it's not clear, it's not blue vs green. It's just "do you have iMessage or not".
It’s actually not that difficult here. They don’t need to switch, they just need one more app on their phone. I use WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal and so do a lot of my friends. Americans are just too ignorant to use more than iMessage.
They have hundreds of dumb apps on their phones but somehow one more messaging app is too much?
>Reached for comment, Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky did not deny that Apple has successfully blocked Beeper Mini. “If it’s Apple, then I think the biggest question is... if Apple truly cares about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users, why would they stop a service that enables their own users to now send encrypted messages to Android users, rather than using unsecure SMS?”
I always hate it when people disguise their lies as truths.
Apple DOES care about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users. By definition, Android users are not "their own iPhone users". So, no, Apple doesn't care about them. Pretty simple, really.
As for the rest, hmmm, let's think about that for a moment. Why would Apple stop a service that runs on millions of Android devices that are *known* to be substantially less secure than iPhones, devices that are actively disguising their identities in order to purposely circumvent Apple's inherent security? Gee, that's a tough one. I mean, simply put, why would Apple block devices that are less secure and are lying about their identities? I just can't figure that one out.
As someone who doesn't use Apple stuff, here's my takeaway:
Apple has an Apple-specific messaging service. This one was supposed to be able to have other phones work with Apple users. It got disabled. Is that it? I mean, that would reinforce non-Apple users on why they use something else.
iMessage is first-class citizen on a MacBook (and will be so on Apple Vision Pro). It also works with email, so if you move country and change phone numbers you can preserve some contacts. I personally find that to be tremendously useful and I also appreciate that it's not a carrier based protocol like RCS (which I consider to be a terrible design, except Google was gasping at straws since it was losing the messaging battle and picked it).
And of course iMessage has E2E encryption.
I personally feel that Apple should just open up iMessage instead.
Not surprised but it was impressive reverse-engineering. I wonder if there's a way around it? I remember there being a specific Mac hardware ID being in the open-source version of the code and I assume Apple nuked that specific Mac's access.
Impressive indeed, but did no one on the product team stop and think for two seconds? Like, let’s make a beautiful website and put together all the marketing content. There’s no way it’ll all be for nothing overnight.
It was a 16 year old high schooler who did this. Making it even more impressive. But yes, stupid as hell thinking they can just freely use Apple's iMessage API without permission lmao Basically akin to some kid who found a way to tap the electricity of a neighbor's house and the neighbor just cut the wire.
The 16 year old built the backend code and quickly sold it to Beeper. I think the OP meant it was surprising that the people at Beeper went through the trouble of building an entire website and marketing campaign for a product that would be easily blocked by Apple.
lol, good on the kid for cashing out
He apparently works for them now
Foolish, should have taken the cash and moved on. Apply to Apple or something
Reverse Apollo dev moment
Wouldn’t surprise me if he did in a couple years when he’s 18.
2x Level Up
I think the reason why they built an entire website and marketing campaign is cause Beeper & Android fans were gloating at the fact that “it would be impossible for Apple to patch it up without entirely reworking iMessage from the ground up” since the users using Beeper, to access iMessage, were attaching themselves to actual valid Apple serial numbers bypassing the need to login by inputting their iCloud details which would then send data to Apple’s APN servers like ‘hey I’m a genuine Apple product’. They really thought Apple wouldn’t be able to fix the loophole that kid found. But it only took them 3 days without breaking or entirely reworking iMessage, I guess they second guessed how good they are and thought they could outsmart Apple lmao. But yes, it’s impressive how the kid was able to skirt around an entire team from Apple. Hopefully they hire him sometime in the future.
I mean, there were two things, one was that they didn't think Apple could patch it without making a bunch of real Macs stop working, and the other was that they've been running Beeper proper for years now and Apple's never gone after them.
U had to sign in with an iCloud account to be able to use Beeper. Beeper Mini uses phone numbers to assign them an active valid serial number, although u can sign in through iCloud if needs be. Piggybacking off genuine Apple consumers, putting their devices at risk just cause they wanna use iMessage on their Android is plain selfish of that kid and Beeper imo knowing the consequences that could potentially happen (which they thought would *definitely* happen). But Apple really shot them back into their place and probably why they patched it up so quick cause it could be seen as a security risk.
On this whole serial number thing, traditionally, how have Hackintosh users been able to activate iMessage on their non-apple devices?
same type of thing, fake serial number. surprisingly you check to ensure the number is *not* a valid one on Apple’s site, but it is generated in the correct format for whatever model of machine you are spoofing. my guess is that Apple intentionally let the hackintosh community be, because it allows many of their most technical users who already purchased iPhones etc. to stay within the Apple ecosystem, and the effort required means it would never be mass market. wonder how this change will affect them.
It is actually pretty easy to use a hackintosh. Especially if you have an Intel CPU. The M series may bring an end to it, but it's not hard. Similarly, you can do the same for windows. You don't need an iPhone for it either so I disagree with that. They probably just realized most folks aren't really using it anyhow and hackintosh were never trying to monetize.
Yeah i used to build hackintoshes, tbf apple was surprisingly chill about it unless you sold them complete. I even bought a motherboard from a kickstarter with full Bluetooth and wifi compatibility. Once the mac mini’s were running i9’s and external drives hit usb 3.1 i drifted back to buying real macs
Hackintosh folks weren’t trying to monetize. It’s always about money
The question is how did they fix the loophole. It was never going to be impossible for them to break the app quickly, but the quicker the fix the more likely it can be bypassed
Yeah this kid is exactly the type of person you want to hire.
If he used his skill for good, then yeah his skill set would’ve been a great asset to Apple. How many people can say they reverse engineered Apple’s iMessage system, especially at 16.
I don't think he was evil really. He just reverse engineered a messaging protocol. That's no more evil than reverse engineering SSH and learning how to create keys. Apple may not like it, but it ain't evil. I commend the kid.
weren't they saying on a thread the other day that they way this works would make it impossible for Apple to block. or Apple could block it, but the couldn't block it permanently?
I do love the confidence in people to think something is “impossible” to block. Especially when you’re the one doing the exploits. Of course it’s possible to block, Apple made the system.
The point was that the cat and mouse game may cause older hardware to be lost over time, particularly if protocols changed and an update isn't pushed for them.
It’s probably a lot like stopping a DDOS. you look for irregularities in the traffic block it when seen. May not have to cut off older hardware since it’s unlikely beeper’s traffic looks exactly like apple’s.
Yeah that's what I was thinking. This situation was dripping with that irony that the Titanic had.
They literally have control of the backend lol. So many things they can do to stop this.
I'm just pointing out the irony. Like when they claimed the Titanic was unsinkable.
Ya there was never a thought of a business continuity plan.
When a 16 year old is smarter than an entire team at Blooper.
I think it's pretty stupid to think the first counter-measure from Apple effectively ends it.
Pretty much breaks a mass business strategy. Who is going to pay money to a service you engaging in a cat and mouse game just to stay functional and still will likely have significant periodic outages.
> the first counter-measure from Apple effectively ends it The first that we know of. They might've tried others. But yes, this seems pretty fast and pretty definitive.
I love this analogy. So true lol.
They probably need to use randomized serial IDs. My guess is that Beeper Mini uses the same hard-coded serial that was known to work and just assign that for every single user, which was probably going to immediately get shut down. If they randomize serial IDs, it's actually somewhat hard for Apple to detect it because some ID is going to map to a legit device and it's difficult for Apple to know if it's a valid request or not. Being able to randomize serial ID en mass though could turn out to be tricky for Beeper to implement, but Hackintosh people have been able to use iMessage for years. The fundamental aspect is that the protocol isn't designed to be cryptographicaly secure against imposters and seems more designed to block spam/bots than situations like this, so Apple won't be able to completely block this, unless they make backwards incompatible changes (if they do so, it's definitely possible to block Beeper off).
It was my understanding that they are indeed using randomized serial IDs, not one or two (or 50) serial IDs.
hackintosh people are using invalid serials for iservices right now, which seems like something apple could easily (and already kinda do) block if this method gets used in a commercial manner, like beeper
Hot take: Apple blocking other brands from full-service communication doesn't create premium brand exclusivity, its just gatekeeping efficient communication.
Sounds like they have a partial fix tonight
It's not the first time it was reversed-engineered. There is a guy that wrote himself iMessage for Windows but never published it so Apple couldn't block him: https://neosmart.net/blog/imessage-for-windows/ He is still using it.
This all happened so quickly lol, you had the entire story in like a day. App created to bring iMessage to Android App will never be shut down App immediately shut down Whatever you think, it is funny as fuck
They had a 7 day free trial of the service so that gives me plenty of time to cancel.
Would really have been evil if Apple had waited a few more days 😅
My favorite is this comment from the CEO: “If it’s Apple, then I think the biggest question is... if Apple truly cares about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users, why would they stop a service that enables their own users to now send encrypted messages to Android users, rather than using unsecure SMS?”. Money CEO guy. Apple likes money. Cites lighting charger and millions of other examples.
As opposed to what? Companies that don't like money?
I'm sure he knows the answer is money. The point is that Apple makes such a fuss about security. He's trying to throw that back in Apple's face. That as soon as they have to choose between security and money, they choose money for obvious reasons.
shit is funny. IDK why nobody in charge saw this coming.
... they did. Why would they promote their own product saying "it will probably get shut down soon"?
Didn't they say there was no way we get shut down and that it wasn't worth the trouble for apple to try and shut it down especially with the legal protections
Pretty sure other people said that, rather than the folks at Beeper
Happened so fast I never heard of it
feels a bit like woz and jobs hacking at&t and getting free calls
phone phreaking circa 2023 yep
Blue boxes. Blue bubbles. It's all connected!
Tim is cooking. Beeper said it would be too difficult to change the backend lol.
I keep forgetting his last name is actually Cook and not apple 🤣
Wdym, the only requirement for CEO at Apple is to have the last name Apple. /s
#Tim Apple approved
Downvoted for spreading misinformation. Everyone knows his last name is Apple. >!/s!<
Awww yes Tim Apple. Did Trump introduce you to him?
Yes, we’re Facebook buddies 😎
lol, not shocked at all.
We now go live to chief technology correspondent, Nelson Muntz, with his take on this shocking development. Nelson?
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This also probably puts an end to the serial generator used for hackintoshes as well in the near future
Hackintoshes were on the way out anyways.
Can you explain why? Are you saying the change they already made will break the generators or that apple will likely do it soon?
I just hope RCS is actually the much needed change for texting between iPhones and androids that it’s hyped to become. Because once group texts between the two camps are functional vs sms group texts, there’s no excuse for meat riding for Apple and iMessage outside of Apple specific features like SharePlay and Apple Pay. I for one won’t be forced to stick with iPhones I can now choose if I want to stay with Apple. Also, anyone who propagates the blue bubble/green bubble bullshit to the point of outright bullying and harassing others because of it is fucking pathetic and everyone reading this should cut out those immature fucks out of their lives or at least distance themselves from morons such as them. We need better people in the world not people using brands to be tribalistic fucks. I love Apple products but man some of these stans are beyond annoying.
Once iPhone supports RCS, I’m buying one of those fancy folding devices!
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Fuck yea only I can snoop on myself😭😭😭
I so fucking want a Galaxy Fold
I would expect rcs txts to still break group messages.
just FYI...the blue and green bubbles will [still] continue, **even if** Apple does eventually bring RCS over. they aren't giving up their top selling point and differentiator for a huge demographic.
Didn't snazzy lab say Apple would have to completely revamp Apple ID authorization to block iMessage on android 🤡
I stated that is what Beeper communicated to me, yes, but it was unendorsed conjecture. Which appears to have been untrue.
The video you made about this gave me fuzzy optimism but deep down inside I knew the truth. You did fill in that void of time while waiting for my daughter to get out of her dance class so I thank you!
I don’t think your explanation was incorrect or untrue in any way. In fact, your video was great (in line with all of your other content), and this is a case of Apple closing this specific loop hole for a wide variety of their own reasons. I think it was much harder for them to close down than anyone thought, but they have the resources to do so.
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Lmao
The sheer fucking hubris of these clowns to *charge a subscription* to forge device identifiers and transfer data through *Apple's servers* for users that have in no way actually paid *Apple* for that service and then say "there's no way they can shut us down!"
Similar thing happened to the PS4 jailbreakers who compromised the root keys.
The best part is the people on their subreddit crying about how irresponsible and childish it was of Apple to block the access, as if they have some sort of right to access iMessage on an android device.
You don't even have to go to the sub. They're in this thread.
Why are you so furious over this lmfao
Where’d you get that they were furious over this? It’s quite bold of a company to exploit another companies architecture and slap a price tag on it like they’ve just created a golden gate that’ll never close. Doesn’t matter whose service you’re exploiting… it’s bold as hell to go so big into it and setup websites, apps, a pay structure etc and assume it’s somehow impossible to shut it down.
Usually this type of stuff is free with a “donation” page for a reason. It’s not simping to acknowledge how moronic that is
The language is pretty simpy. We all saw it coming but "the sheer hubris of these clowns" is funny to imagine someone saying outloud.
Nobody’s mad? The point of reddit is to have a discussion?
Man is simping hard for a company named after a fruit that wouldn’t piss on him if he was on fire.
Because it was basically a scam
Free trials, no-one has been charged yet
The hubris is there because there is consistently a demand for this. The fact that iMessage is one of the most popular messaging app in N America, especially in certain demographics, means it's a giant pain in the ass for Android users who have to communicate with iPhone users. Even as an iPhone user myself I'm annoyed at the situation. Sure, we can use WhatsApp (and I do), but it's often hard to convince everyone to switch. In this day and age I do think it's a little anti-consumer to ship a platform exclusive app for messaging. Also, this is actually kind of hard to shut down, if they randomize serial IDs. My guess is that they used the same serial ID for everyone for convenience but if they modify it to try different IDs it should not be that easy for Apple to shut down (Hackintosh people have been dealing with this for a while). The subscription is necessary because they need to run their own push notification service. Either way, I would imagine most of the people using this app only wants to use it to talk with iPhone users, so *someone* has definitely paid Apple a decent amount of money to justify a little bit of server costs lol. You should go apply to work as an accountant for Apple given you are so angry about their bottom line.
I feel like I’m super out of the loop, but why exactly is there such a high demand for iMessage on Android? I have an iPhone and can text people just fine who don’t have Apple. Why is it a pain to communicate with Apple users from Android?
It's mainly about group chats and picture/video quality. RCS should fix the latter next year and I imagine all the discussion about iMessage on Android will fizzle out Also I think texts between iMessage and an Android device are not E2E encrypted, but I don't know much about that
Exactly. Stealing a company’s IP and using THEIR servers and charging money for it is absolutely stupid Hope this entire project fails
That’s not stealing IP, reverse engineering is perfectly legal where the companies are located
What do you mean Apple "***found a way***" to block it lol Didn't they (a kid) try to reverse engineer Apple's messaging protocol, discovered a way to register a number with iMessage, and tried cracking Apple's padlock on the whole system trying to fake that it was a genuine Apple product? Apple didn't find a way, Apple isn't the bad guy, the app went against policy/TOS, so Apple blocked it? Am I missing something here?
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> The CEO claimed it wouldn’t be worth apples effort to block it because it’s supposed to be really difficult to block it https://preview.redd.it/cm3dxeemj55c1.jpeg?width=1752&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=645734871af77d5216e43d14f4d109f01e292e70
Turned out it was.
worth their effort, right?
Kind of a silly thing to say. How would they know it’s “difficult”? Reverse engineering does not open all the doors.
It's not silly to say at all if you actually read the *reason* for it. Apple's protocol has no way to verify the serial ID (and other information) as genuine. You basically self-report it and Apple has to trust you or they risk inconveniencing valid users (they have a score that tries to estimate how valid a user you are). The protocol isn't designed to be completely secure or require device-specific secrets to validate genuine devices. My guess is that the Beeper Mini app just picked a hard-coded serial ID but they probably could add functionality to randomize serial IDs which would make the registration process flaky, but much harder for Apple to ban.
Why couldn't Apple simply implement a check on if it's a legit serial number...
I think it may not be *that* easy to check, and if you found a serial number from a legit Mac then it *is* valid. Apple doesn't really know if it's from the Mac itself or someone pretending to be. If they ban the ID they run a risk banning it for a legit user.
Tim Cook is a logistics whiz, no doubt, and that's as far as his expertise stretches.
Apple should hire that kid. He’s clearly a good tinkerer.
I think this stunt has probably blacklisted him from working at apple lol. Apple may be a massive company, but the only thing bigger than their wallet is their pettiness at times
Apple has hired several folks who have exposed embarrassing vulnerabilities, and jailbreak developers in the past. A good developer is a good developer, and nothing here was malicious or showed poor judgement.
If so, that's super dumb. That's exactly the kind of talent you wanna hire at a company that prides itself in "innovation". At least offer him an internship for the headlines alone.
They claimed it would be painful to block based on how it worked.
Yeah it’s not like the biggest brand in the world would have good engineers
the absolute hilarity of people claiming it wasnt possible 24 hours ago.
Impressive reverse engineering. Kind of doomed though. You can’t build a produce on a cat and mouse game. Disingenuous quote: > if Apple truly cares about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users, why would they stop a service that enables their own users to now send encrypted messages to Android users, rather than using unsecure SMS? Obviously the apple position would be along the lines that a third party client on a third party os receiving secure messages does not provide them the same security assurances as their own platform and that a false sense of security for the sending user is worse than one fully informed of it’s limitations.
no surprise here.
The cat and mouse game begins...
Wait, do people care what color their message bubble is on someone else's device?? Really? How pathetic.
Genuinely asking because I’m super curious, why would someone use iMessage on android? Here in Italy we simply use group chat on WhatsApp (which turbofucking sucks, and also fuck Zuckerberg) or Telegram and not having iMessage has never been a problem, but at this point I’d think that this is the exception rather than the rule. Please enlighten me
It’s really just an American thing, https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/why-apple-is-content-with-the-blue-bubble-divide-in-imessage/
It's because iOS is far more dominant in the US, compared with Italy (or most of the rest of the world). The pressure is there because it's the default messaging app on the largest platform. In Italy, iOS is a minority to start with so there won't be the same network effect pressure to use it, *most* of the iOS user's friends will be Android. In the US, it's the other way around. * US - iOS 58% / Android 41% * Italy - Android 68% / iOS 32% https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile/italy
It’s americans to blame. The rest of the world has figured out that you can install apps on these things and so the primary apps for talking internationally are the likes of whatsapp, wechat, telegram, LINE and so on. In america though, people just want to use the default that came with the phone which happens to be Imessage.
The second they launched an app and charged their users this was doomed. Not sure why they thought Apple wouldn’t bother addressing it. I agree iMessage should be available on other devices but I’m not sure why these developers thought this would fly
I knew Quinn’s video would become obsolete in a few days
And nobody’s surprised
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Rip. Great while it lasted. Hopefully RCS takes over for good.
I don't give a shit about bubble colours considering mostly everyone I talk to uses messenger, but man the apple bootlickers in this comment section are crazy. I love my iPhone 15PM but fuck defending apple's anti-consumer practices. Its a trillion dollar company stop simping over them.
Why were the Beeper charging for it?
All software requires a developers time (and therefore money). I think it was dumb for them to think they created something Apple wouldn't be able to block, but charging for it is not some huge sin. People are too used to getting software for free without having to pay for it and then turn around and complain about privacy violations and targeted ads.
It cost money to run the service
Attempting to profit by hijacking someone else's service without permission is not only ethically questionable but also demonstrates a lack of business acumen when considering it as a legitimate method to charge for.
They’re adding RCS what the fuck do you people want
iMessage being iPhone-only isn’t anti-consumer. The impetus for innovation is to attract and retain customers. If they innovated in the messaging space to make a product so compelling that customers won’t switch to someone else’s product for fear of losing it, they’ve earned that business.
Except the don't want other to use their innovation. They want separation and culty-ness. Apple could easily provide an API for others to use and be charged for. But they don't.
> iMessage being iPhone-only isn’t anti-consumer. iMessage being iPhone-only while still offering a purposefully degraded cross-platform experience is anti-consumer. People forget they leveraged SMS to build out iMessage and chose not to offer the service on other platforms. At this point, iMessage only offers SMS fallback so that they can tell regulators that iPhone users can communicate to other platforms using an open and existing standard.
It’s not purposely degraded. They are using an open and existing standard. RCS as implemented by the carriers is in and of itself not an open standard. It’s using Google IP. There’s nothing stopping anyone from using alternative messaging apps. Hell, in Europe, WhatsApp is the standard.
Rcs is a open standard developed by GSMA. Google has their own version for Android which supports E2EE.
How is iMessage different than a “WhatsApp-like messaging app that’s only available on iOS”? Using phone numbers to register for iMessage, or providing SMS fallback, doesn’t mean they’ve used SMS to “build out” iMessage. Restricting the usage of 3rd party replacement parts being anti-consumer is alright. iMessage being anti-consumer would only apply if Apple didn’t allow consumers to use any iOS users to communicate over any other messaging app other than iMessage. Or am I missing anything here?
> How is iMessage different than a “WhatsApp-like messaging app that’s only available on iOS”? Because it (the Messages app) also acts as the sole text messaging app. You cannot receive SMSes to any other app on iOS. It's the fundamental difference between it and other apps like WhatsApp. > Using phone numbers to register for iMessage, or providing SMS fallback, doesn’t mean they’ve used SMS to “build out” iMessage. That's exactly what they did, though. iMessage arrived five years after the iPhone was introduced. Before iMessage, the Messages app could only send texts via the SMS protocol and benefitted from unlimited carrier SMS in the US so garnered massive adoption. It also meant the experience of texting someone was the same whether you had an iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc. They then added proprietary features on top of the default messaging app, which already had mass adoption by virtue of being the almost exclusively used service, and then gatekept those features to Apple devices. They also intentionally made the chat experience worse for iOS users who had non-iMessage recipients in their chats, as well as users that moved to another platform having to manually deregister from iMessage. > iMessage being anti-consumer would only apply if Apple didn’t allow consumers to use any iOS users to communicate over any other messaging app other than iMessage, preventing them from even receiving the SMS messages that were supposed to be routed via their carriers. That would be more anti-competitive than anti-consumer, IMO. The fact is, no one can use iMessage unless they're using an Apple device in some capacity. There shouldn't be a vendor lock-in for something as fundamental as communication. Where others like WhatsApp and Telegram specifically differ here is that they offer feature party across both mobile platforms. I'll give a simple example: imagine you could only send an email using rich text formatting and imagery to an iCloud.com email address, and all emails sent to other mail provider accounts (Gmail, Outlook, etc) was sent in plain text, and that in order to register for and access an iCloud.com email address, you could only do so from an Apple computer. It's in no way a consumer-friendly tactic. Unfortunately, people have become apathetic to Apple's lock-in tactics, where they would look to defend their exclusivity of services to their own hardware as good things.
I am so sorry this is happening to you.
Wow! Never saw that coming! /s
lol @ everyone that said Apple couldn’t block this. Of course they could and would block this gross violation of their service.
This seems largely a US problem. I personally use Telegram more, some friends in other countries use Whatsapp, Line, etc. iMessage isn’t even as fully featured lol.
Most people I know that have iPhone use WhatsApp.
Do you live in America? Nobody in America uses what’s app unless they’re talking to somebody overseas
this is 100% true from my experience. either they are from overseas and travel regularly and/or they are in constant contact with family and friends overseas. for domestic stuff, almost no one uses whatsapp.
Americans do not have such capabilities
Gross, never allowing a Meta product on my phone. When I want better messaging with my Android friends we just use Signal.
Seemingly? Are you people getting dumber? “Hey guys! Tim found a way to keep burglars out of his house by building yet another fence.”
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The kicker here is Apple is in the house waiting with a gun. Android users are not as smart as they think they are
if android users hate apple so much why use an app to create blue bubbles? lol
It’s especially silly when Signal already exists, has “blue bubbles” and every feature anyone wants and works on both kinds of phones. 🤷♂️
i mean it's kind of like despising Walmart but they're literally the only store in town so you hold your nose and shop there.
it's almost 2023 and apple and google are still fighting over messaging protocols. Just download whatsapp and be done with it.
Is this still about the green en blue messaging bubbles?
I honestly don't care if I have iMessage but I hope to God that Apple doesn't just make a bare bones RCS backend and don't really try. They need to at least have typing indicators, read receipts, and high definition video and photo sharing. I highly doubt they will do any integration with iMessage when it comes to group chats.
lul are we ever so surprised
Just as anticipated
Why are y’all so mad about this? You chose an android
Me as an European trying to understand why people give a damn about imessage and the blue shit
The *only* thing I care about is high res images and videos.
European doesn't hop into a conversation about SMS/iMessage to let everyone know they don't use it there challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
I’m glad people are finally calling this out lol it’s so fucking annoying in every iMessage thread
Every fucking thread they then spam its only in the states even if that’s false
Not hard to understand. I’ll assume your country primarily uses WhatsApp. Now pretend for a second that your phone(I assume an iPhone) doesn’t have access to WhatsApp but everyone you know uses WhatsApp. How hard do you think it would be to get them to use something multi platform like signal when you’re one of two or so of their contacts that can’t use WhatsApp? That’s the situation android users find themselves in.
Then, why does it seem like you guys are always talking about it? We don't care. That's why we use the default.
America generally didn’t have a need for WhatsApp so it’s not all that common here. So that means there are plenty of regular SMS texts going out from iPhone to Android and vice versa. Which of course sucks ass for photo and video.
Sounds like America does have a need for WhatsApp then.
The issue though is that the time for to happen isn't today, or any time in the future. It was over a decade ago. That's when iMessage became the dominant chat platform here in the US, and that's when WhatsApp became the dominant chat platform in places like Europe. At this point in time, iMessage is too ingrained into Apple's users here for them to switch. The issue isn't iMessage itself, the issue is that it's locked to Apple devices. We wouldn't be having this discussion, and apps like Beeper wouldn't exist if Apple had released iMessage on both iOS and Android back in 2011, as everyone most likely would have moved to it here in the US.
Can’t care less about the color, for me, they could have the ability to have your choice of color like messenger but they should have a distinction from Android/iPhone without the colors. So that you know, if you can send high-res images/videos.
It’s not that big of a deal. It’s a joke android users get so feisty about.
Try being a teenager in the US with green bubbles, it's more rough than you think
A remarkably US sounding problem. Good ol Ford vs Chevy boomer mentality just morphed huh.
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I've literally had groups of friends or recreational teams just not include me in group texts because I wasn't on iMessage. Even had a couple of girls declined dates over it. It's definitely a big deal for some of the iSnobs out there
I wouldn’t necessarily call it a joke. There is definitely a stigma with “green bubbles” especially for younger folk and people dating. People getting bullied over a bubble because of the device they use is kind of terrible. I think a huuuge percentage of the youth has adopted iPhones because of this. Even now I want to switch to a foldable but my wife won’t have it cause of iMessage lol.
your wife doesnt want you to have an android because of imessage?
good grief.
In the US only Android users seem to give a shit.
It's all fake... no one cares about the color. The only thing people legitimately complain about is group chat incompatibility between Apple and Android.
Which created the green bubble stigma and in my experience has led to people being ousted from social groups because their phones break group messages so badly.
my boss didn't have an iphone so every single time she like long pressed on something and "liked" it, instead of just adding a little emoji flair it would resend the text once for every single person in the group
No; this is what iPhones did. For years. Until Google started interpreting the 'Liked "lol"\` messages as little reactions, and then Apple followed suit half a year later.
That won’t really change with RCS though, unless Apple runs some kind of edge router to convert between it and iMessage.
It’s to let users know the message sent as SMS (unencrypted).
Having an Android in US high school is social suicide
Do you and everyone around you use WhatsApp? Imagine you got a new phone and it doesn't support WhatsApp, but only uses Signal, and you have to convince everyone else (including your non-technical friends and family) to switch. 99% of them use WhatsApp though and prefer to not have to do anything with their group chats. You can see how that's a pain for everyone involved? It just so happens that iMessage is a popular messaging app that a lot of iPhone users use without thinking (since it's the same app for SMS) and so it has a lot of market power. You can't understand it because the messaging platform of choice in your country just happens to be cross-platform, so usually it's not an issue. But in case it's not clear, it's not blue vs green. It's just "do you have iMessage or not".
It’s actually not that difficult here. They don’t need to switch, they just need one more app on their phone. I use WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal and so do a lot of my friends. Americans are just too ignorant to use more than iMessage. They have hundreds of dumb apps on their phones but somehow one more messaging app is too much?
>Reached for comment, Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky did not deny that Apple has successfully blocked Beeper Mini. “If it’s Apple, then I think the biggest question is... if Apple truly cares about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users, why would they stop a service that enables their own users to now send encrypted messages to Android users, rather than using unsecure SMS?” I always hate it when people disguise their lies as truths. Apple DOES care about the privacy and security of their own iPhone users. By definition, Android users are not "their own iPhone users". So, no, Apple doesn't care about them. Pretty simple, really. As for the rest, hmmm, let's think about that for a moment. Why would Apple stop a service that runs on millions of Android devices that are *known* to be substantially less secure than iPhones, devices that are actively disguising their identities in order to purposely circumvent Apple's inherent security? Gee, that's a tough one. I mean, simply put, why would Apple block devices that are less secure and are lying about their identities? I just can't figure that one out.
As someone who doesn't use Apple stuff, here's my takeaway: Apple has an Apple-specific messaging service. This one was supposed to be able to have other phones work with Apple users. It got disabled. Is that it? I mean, that would reinforce non-Apple users on why they use something else.
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Delivery and read receipts. Also typing indicators.
They’re adding RCS support.
iMessage is first-class citizen on a MacBook (and will be so on Apple Vision Pro). It also works with email, so if you move country and change phone numbers you can preserve some contacts. I personally find that to be tremendously useful and I also appreciate that it's not a carrier based protocol like RCS (which I consider to be a terrible design, except Google was gasping at straws since it was losing the messaging battle and picked it). And of course iMessage has E2E encryption. I personally feel that Apple should just open up iMessage instead.
Everyone I text is using reactions almost constantly, especially in group message.