- A new subscription-based app called Beeper promises to unify 15 messaging apps.
- The app also advertises iMessage support.
- A Mac is required to use iMessage. Otherwise, Beeper will send you an old iPhone.
There are tons of cross-platform chat apps out there, including WhatsApp, Telegram, and Signal, available on both Android and iOS. Unfortunately, Apple’s iMessages app is still an Apple-exclusive service. However, a new app promises to unify a wide variety of popular chat apps, including Apple’s chat platform.
Beeper is the brainchild of Eric Migicovsky, the founder of Pebble Smartwatch (h / t: The edge) and promises to combine 15 messaging apps under Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS and Linux into one app. The app also offers features like unified search and the ability to set reminders.
Some of the most popular apps and services supported in Beeper are WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Discord, Hangouts, Slack, IRC, and iMessage. However, the founder admits that a workaround was needed to get Apple’s service to work on Beeper.
“Beeper gives Android, Windows and Linux users two ways to use iMessage: We send every user a jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app installed that bridges the gap to iMessage, or if they have a Mac that always has it connected to the internet, you can install the Beeper Mac app, which acts as a bridge, ”the service website says.
This is not an unprecedented workaround as other unofficial Android apps like AirMessage and WeMessage also require a Mac or iPhone as a relay for your Android device. But the fact that Beeper sends you a jailbroken iPhone (even if it’s a much older one) is pretty neat.
The service costs $ 10 per month. It is therefore unclear whether subscribers have to commit themselves to a set period of time if they need the jailbroken iPhone (e.g. six months, 12 months).
The company adds that all bridges are open source, so you can check the security of your data and see Beeper connect to each chat service (the client app is not open source, however). However, you can click the button below for more information on the Beeper website.