As quickly as the Beeper Mini app brought iMessage to Android, Apple showed up to rain on its parade. On Friday, Beeper Mini users started reporting problems with the app. Beeper took to X to note that the team was investigating reports about problems sending and receiving messages. Apple apparently closed the loophole the app was taking advantage of, as users are now seeing error messages when they try to send texts.
Apple obviously hasnāt taken credit for blocking Beeper Mini, but itās the most likely explanation. TechCrunch reached out to Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky and asked if Apple is responsible for the outage. His response: āYes, all data indicates that.ā
As The Verge explains, Beeper probably assumed that it would be too much effort for Apple to block their app. After all, the team reverse-engineered Appleās messaging protocol. Migicovsky even argued that the app would make smartphone users safer, as those āgreen bubble textsā arenāt encrypted when sent from an Android device to an iPhone.
This clearly casts doubt on Beeperās ability to bring FaceTime to Android as well.
āIf itās Apple, then I think the biggest question isā¦ 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?ā Migicovsky told The Verge. āWith their announcement of RCS support, itās clear that Apple knows they have a gaping hole here. Beeper Mini is here today and works great. Why force iPhone users back to sending unencrypted SMS when they chat with friends on Android?ā
Whatever the case, any users who were paying $2 a month for a subscription to Beeper Mini are going to have some questions for the team. Beeper is going to āevaluate options,ā but itās unclear how long it will take to restore the functionality (if it can even be restored at all). In the meantime, Android users canāt use Sunbird either, as it was shut down.