[ad_1]
Earlier this month, WhatsApp announced some changes to its privacy policy which users sent scramble to move their mobile social life to a new network. Signal has a influx richly deserved new users, and Android users have lamented the fact that they cannot upgrade to Apple’s iMessage. All of that goes a long way to say now is a good time to get into the messaging solutions business –and the founder of Pebble claims to have a strange new solution.
Beep is an upcoming app that sells itself as a hub for all your email services. Instead of managing half a dozen apps to keep in touch with friends, family, and colleagues, Beeper lets you channel everything into one interface. According to its website, the app supports 14 external messaging platforms as well as its own Beeper network. But the company’s claim that it brings iMessage to Android, Windows, or Linux devices could be a killer feature for anyone who has suffered from the embarrassment of the green bubble.
Apple likes to keep its internal products exclusive to its own hardware, so this claim is a bit surprising, but Beeper says he found a workaround. On its website, that explains:
Beeper has two ways to allow Android, Windows and Linux users to use iMessage: we send each user a jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app installed, which links iMessage, or if they have a Mac still connected to the internet. , they can install the Beeper Mac application which acts as a bridge. This is no joke, it really works!
G / O Media can get commission
Okay, the part about using an always-on Mac as a bridge is not unprecedented, but the idea of sending users jailbroken recycled iPhones is a bit crazy.
Eric Migicovsky, founder of the company Pebble smartwatch and partner at Beeper, taken to twitter to insist that the jailbreak plan is legitimate and that he currently has 50 iPhone 4s ready for the task.
Everyone needs something, and we’ll give out Beeper points for originality. But it’s hard to imagine that there would be a ton of demand for this jailbreak workaround. Then again, it’s a big crowd and there is surely a market for these older devices if they are not too expensive. But a jailbroken old iPhone is a security risk which only gets riskier over time as you can’t apply security updates without putting the device back in jail.
Another privacy issue is encryption. Beeper privacy policy is fairly straightforward and contains no blatant red flags. But it doesn’t mention encryption either. Many of the services it groups together use some level of end-to-end encryption, and Beeper must be able to assure users that they can expect the same level of security that they would have when using one of the stand-alone services. Beeper did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment on its encryption policy, and we will update this post when we get a response.
Here is the list of messaging services compatible with Beeper:
- Facebook Messenger
- iMessage
- Android messages (SMS)
- Telegram
- Soft
- Hangouts
- Skype
- IRC
- Matrix
- Discord
- Signal
- Beeper network
I would pass on some practical impressions, but the app is not out yet and for now all you can do is sign up to be notified when it was launched.
Beeper raises many questions, the most important of which may be whether people are willing to pay a subscription fee of $ 10 per month. Everyone is up to the monthly subscriptions at this point, and it’s unclear if being up to their eyes in messaging apps is a bigger pain in the ass.
[ad_2]
Source link