Nothing, the popular phone company founded by Carl Pei, tried to bridge the gap between iMessage and Android with its Chat app. However, due to privacy concerns, it was removed from the Google Play Store. But now, Beeper Mini could emerge as an alternative that will let you chat on iMessage using your Android phone almost as if it is an iPhone.
Palo Alto-based Beeper was founded in 2020 with the desire to combine several messaging services under a single roof. However, it has since released a new app called Beeper Mini, which, according to TechCrunch, will cost USD 1.99 per month and enable users to send and receive end-to-end encrypted chats on iMessage. The team behind the app says they managed this by reverse engineering the iMessage protocol.
“We jailbroke iPhones then dove deep into the OS to see how everything worked. Then wrote new code from scratch to reproduce everything inside our Android app,” Eric Migicovsky said, TechCrunch reported.
According to Eric, this makes Beeper Mini a third-party iMessage client that is secure. The app should not be able to see your messages, your contact or your Apple ID password.
According to 9to5Google, there are two ways to log into the Beeper Mini app after downloading it from the Play Store. However, you will need to first sign into your Google account, grant access, and then complete a few other tasks, such as configuring your subscription.
There are two ways that you can use Beeper Mini after that. You can log in without using an Apple ID by choosing the first option. You can access iMessage with just your phone, but this will prevent messages from syncing between devices. Additionally, it is the default choice.
Once you’ve chosen the first setup option, you can proceed to the second one, where you can use your Apple ID to log in and utilise Beeper Mini on your Android phone in addition to iMessage on other Apple devices.
However, Beeper Mini uses the SIM card number that you are currently using on your Android phone for both of these options. Although Beeper can function as a legitimate iMessage client, not all features will be supported.