Beeper users claim Apple is blocking their Macs from iMessage

Beeper might be done battling Apple over the Beeper Mini app, but Apple certainly isn’t finished fighting. Several Reddit posts claim Apple is banning Macs used with Beeper from accessing iMessage.

As a quick refresher, back in 2023, Beeper launched the Beeper Mini app, enabling iMessage conversations on Android devices using just a phone number — no need to use any Apple hardware. However, Apple quickly moved to break the service, starting an escalating back-and-forth battle where Beeper would roll out fixes and Apple would find new ways to break the service.

Near the end of December, Beeper gave up, with Canadian CEO Eric Migicovsky writing in a blog post that Beeper “can’t win” against Apple. Beeper pushed one last update to keep Beeper Mini going but said it had no plans to develop another fix if Apple broke it again.

That last fix involved using Macs to generate the registration data required for Beeper Mini users to access iMessage. However, that same registration data seems to be the tool Apple is using to ban Macs. Per the Reddit posts, Apple is apparently detecting instances of registration data being used by Beeper and blocking that registration from accessing iMessage.

Some users report having success contacting Apple support to restore access to iMessage.

While the move may certainly be a bummer for people still relying on Beeper to get iMessage chats on their Android phone, it’s unlikely Beeper will do anything about it (the company did give up, after all). It’s also hardly a surprise that Apple continues to go after Beeper users, given how much it values iMessage as a platform lock-in tool.

Ultimately, here’s hoping this pushes users to ditch iMessage for any of the excellent cross-platform chat apps already out there.

Source: Reddit, (2), (3) Via: Apple Insider