Beeper Mini’s drama persists as the iMessage workaround for Androidfaces another outage, the second in a week. Roughly 5% of users have been hit with connectivity problems, and Beeper Mini wasted no time blaming Apple for “deliberately blocking” iMessages from being sent to users. In the midst of Beeper’s rollercoaster, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers is urging the Department of Justice to look into Apple’s “potential anticompetitive treatment” of Beeper Mini.
Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Mike Lee (R-UT), along with Representatives Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and Ken Buck (R-CO), have requested US Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter to investigate Apple’s “potentially anticompetitive conduct,” according to a letter seen by reporter Jo Ling Kent and posted to X (formerly Twitter).
The lawmakers have also pointed fingers at Apple executives, who previously revealed that the tech giant made iMessage exclusive to iPhones to keep users stuck in its ecosystem and avoid losing them to Android. The letter goes on to say that Apple messing with Beeper Mini could threaten competition, limit choices for consumers, and put a damper on investing in interoperable messaging services.
Additionally, the letter mentioned a Department of Commerce report labeling Apple as a “gatekeeper,” overseeing the essential services of various tech platforms. The lawmakers backed up their point by referring to Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky’s December 2021 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Migicovsky said at the time that major messaging services would use their power to block interoperability and prevent companies like Beeper from competing. “Given Apple’s recent actions, that concern appears prescient,” they added.
Speaking to CBS News, Migicovsky and 16-year-old developer James Gill talked about how they keep Beeper Mini kicking. Migicovsky said Beeper is only trying to give people what they want and then threw shade at Apple, claiming the company has a monopoly on iMessage.
As for Beeper Mini’s secret sauce, Gill revealed that he reverse-engineered the software by basically poking at it with a “real Mac and a real iPhone.”
If you haven’t been keeping up with Beeper Mini, theapp has been playing cat and mouse with Appleby offering afree messaging servicefor Android users that’s completely compatible with iMessage. But Applekeeps shutting it down. Beeper, being the resilient bunch,quickly figured out a new method to make iMessage play nice on Android, though this time an Apple ID is required instead of a phone number.
This tussle has kicked off a discussion on whether Apple should play nice and let iMessage work with other operating systems. In their letter to the DOJ, the lawmakers emphasized that “interoperability and interconnection have long been key drivers of competition and consumer choice in communications services.” They added that consumers won’t enjoy the perks of competition if the big shots squash it right from the start.
That said, iMessage can receive text messages via SMS from other devices, even Android phones. But it lacks the extra layer of security provided by end-to-end encryption. Starting next year,iMessage will finally support RCSfor end-to-end encrypted messaging with the Android crowd, though they will still rock the green bubble look.
