Beeper Mini restores its iMessage app for Android and makes it free, but will it last?

Just days after its debut, Beeper Mini was seemingly killed by Apple. Now, the iMessage app for Android is back, but how long will it last this time?

The timeline of events with Beeper Mini was fast. On December 5, the app was announced and made available to all users. It quickly racked up over 100,000 downloads from users, and the reason for its relative popularity was clear. Unlike many other iMessage apps for Android, Beeper Mini didn’t use a cloud server to let you use Apple’s service; it tapped directly into iMessage.

Apple, however, confirmed on Saturday night that it had closed the loophole, and as a result, Beeper Mini was dead.

That’s what we thought at least.

This afternoon, Beeper Mini is back, thanks to a new app update which indeed does restore service. The update, which currently requires sideloading as it’s still being reviewed by the Play Store, removes phone number support and leaves users to continue with iMessage via their Apple ID. That takes away several of Beeper Mini’s biggest selling points – no Apple ID sign-in and using the phone number on your Android phone – but it’s impressive to see it working at all, nonetheless.

Speaking to 9to5Google, Beeper’s Eric Migicovsky confirmed that, yes, this is still using the reverse-engineered method to connect to iMessage. It’s not using Mac server farms.

Beeper claims that phone number registration may return later.

Phone number registration is not working yet. All users must now sign in with an AppleID. Messages will be sent and received via your email address rather than phone number. We’re currently working on a fix for this.

Beeper has also, given the chaos, made Beeper Mini free to use. The app will no longer require a $2/month subscription, though users are allowed to leave that on as a donation. The app won’t be free forever, but that leads to the next question.

How long will it last this time?

In a statement to 9to5Mac and 9to5Google over the weekend, Apple made it quite clear that Beeper’s app will continue to be blocked (emphasis below our own):

At Apple, we build our products and services with industry-leading privacy and security technologies designed to give users control of their data and keep personal information safe. We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage. These techniques posed significant risks to user security and privacy, including the potential for metadata exposure and enabling unwanted messages, spam, and phishing attacks. We will continue to make updates in the future to protect our users.

So, it seems it’s only a matter of time until this latest effort is blocked.

Beeper, in its post, doesn’t seem to address this question but does argue once again that Beeper Mini poses no security threat and stands by that it “made communication between Android and iPhone users more secure,” at least for a few days.