Last week, Beeper Mini made headlines by bringing iMessage to Android. After just a few days, though, users began to report that iMessage was no longer working through Beeper Mini, with Apple reportedly blocking the app. Now, Beeper Mini’s iMessage app is back, thanks to a workaround that requires your Apple ID email.
The change is a bit disappointing, as it means your friends will now need to use your Apple ID email to send you messages. Previously Beeper Mini let you sign up with your phone number, which it then used to register your device with iMessage. Now, though, signing up with a phone number has been removed, and instead you will have to use your Apple ID email to receive and send iMessages on Android using the app.
The company behind the Beeper Mini iMessage app shared the news in a blog post this week, detailing the change and saying that it is working to bring back phone number registration. Additionally, the company has made the decision to make Beeper Mini free to use. Previously, the app required a $2 a month subscription.
However, because of the volatile nature of the situation right now, and the fact that Apple could possibly block Beeper Mini again at any point, the company doesn’t want to charge users until things stabilize again. According to a statement made by Apple to The Verge over the weekend, Apple feels that the method that Beeper Mini uses pose “significant risk to user security and privacy”. However, Beeper says that is the exact opposite of what happened, and that “Beeper Mini made communication between Android and iPhone users more secure.”
It’s important to note that this new workaround for Beeper Mini’s iMessage app does not utilize Mac relay servers in the way that Nothing’s iMessage app did. It still runs on a cloud server, and works similarly to the way that the original design worked when you could use your phone number, the company says.
Of course, it’s very possible that Apple could respond in some way to this workaround, so I wouldn’t recommend hedging your bets on things just yet. No matter how you slice it, using Beeper Mini is stealing iMessage from Apple, and it remains to be seen just how much the situation will stabilize, or if Apple will even let Beeper Mini remain operational using these methods.