Beeper will require a Mac to use iMessage on Android

Beeper Cloud and Mini will be usable again via a new registration method, the developer claims. The services, which make iMessage usable on Android, were recently blocked several times by Apple. The new method requires users to have access to a Mac.

Beeper says it has found a way to ‘stabilize the iMessage situation’, the team behind the iMessage client reports on social media. Users now need to have a Mac or use a friend’s to register for the service. That Mac is used to generate registration data for iMessage. According to Beeper, ten to twenty users can use one Mac together to register for the service. Users can generate the registration data via the Beeper Cloud app for Mac. This will be updated on Wednesday, December 20 to add this functionality.

According to Beeper, those registration details are the reason why the service could be blocked by Apple. “Until now, we used our own Mac servers to do this. Unfortunately, this has proven to be an easy target for Apple, as thousands of Beeper users used the same registration data.” With its own Mac, which is used by a relatively limited number of people, it should be less easy for Apple to block access to iMessage for Beeper users.

“This one-to-one mapping of registration data to individual users makes the connection, in our tests, very reliable,” the service said. The Mac in question must ‘periodically refresh’ its registration information to continue using Beeper. According to the service, this should be done ‘approximately once a week or month’. The Mac in question must therefore be switched on ‘regularly’ to refresh the data.

Beeper Mini was introduced two weeks ago. The service promised to make iMessage usable on Android, including “blue bubbles” and features like end-to-end encryption, voice messaging, group conversations, emoji reactions, stickers and more. The app uses a reverse-engineered iMessage stack to communicate directly with Apple’s servers, without the intervention of a Mac or other Apple device. The service had a Cloud version for some time, which worked via Beeper Macs.

A few days after its release, Beeper stopped working, after which Apple confirmed that it had taken action against the service. The service was then adapted to use an Apple ID, although the app subsequently stopped working again for many users. The new registration method should solve this, although an Apple device is now required for this.

Beeper Mini