The Fight Over Apple’s iMessage and Those Green Bubbles
Apple has worked to block the Beeper Android app for users, but it plans to adopt a more Android-friendly texting standard alongside iMessage
Dec. 22, 2023 11:21 am ET
After nearly 10 years, my husband, Will, finally joined the Nguyen family iMessage chat.
Will, a staunch Android user, infiltrated the group earlier this month using Beeper Mini. This fresh app promises the previously impossible: turning green-bubble Android texts into blue-bubble iMessages. Unlike other workarounds, Beeper Mini initially didn’t rely on a server, a Mac or an iPhone.
Until Apple moved to block it. Now the app is stuck in limbo, and both sides are digging in for a fight.
Android users flocked to Beeper Mini after its Dec. 5 launch. The app had over 100,000 downloads in its first 48 hours, likely because of something Will and other Android users know: Green-bubble discrimination is real.
Apple’s iMessage has a strong grip on users—especially teens—in the U.S., where over half of the smartphone-owning population has an iPhone, according to analytics firm Counterpoint Research. When two people on iPhones communicate, their chat bubbles are blue, and they have exclusive perks such as tapback reactions and personalized animated Memojis. The blue-bubble effect keeps iPhone owners in Apple’s universe and even tempts some Android users to switch.
Meanwhile, Android-to-iPhone chats use the ancient SMS (aka short message service) standard, as indicated by green bubbles on the iPhone. That’s why mixed group chats often break—or why iPhone users try to keep the Android users out.
Apple may need to fight off more than just a little Android app. The Beeper situation and Apple’s own green-bubble upgrade plans for 2024 point to the larger concern over anticompetitive practices—a fight Apple is having on multiple fronts. Regulators are now pressuring the giant to open up its exclusive chat platform.
iMessage vs. everyone else
Beeper Mini worked seamlessly at first. Will could add reactions to messages, unsend texts, record audio notes and see when people were typing. By some technological marvel, none of his texts turned my family’s 21-person group chat green.
Part of iMessage’s allure is that it’s built-in and default. You can’t select a different messaging app, say WhatsApp, as the default on an iPhone. In the U.S., this has been the main reason iPhone owners won’t adopt alternative apps.
Nicole’s husband, Will, finally joined the family group chat using the iMessage-connecting Android app Beeper Mini. PHOTO: NICOLE NGUYEN/THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
iPhone-Android texting is painful. SMS texts can’t be sent over Wi-Fi and they don’t handle images or video well. They’re also not secure. An SMS is like a postcard, where carriers can read your message (and so can people who hack mobile networks). An encrypted text, such as those sent over iMessage, shields content from prying eyes.
Beeper Mini said it used a technique that reverse-engineered Apple’s iMessage protocol. The app only needed the user’s phone number to identify the device to the iMessage network. Messages could be sent directly to Apple’s servers, and stay end-to-end encrypted.
A few days after Beeper Mini’s launch, however, Apple closed Beeper’s technical loophole, citing security risks. An Apple spokeswoman said, “We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials to gain access to iMessage. These techniques posed significant risks to user security and privacy.”
A week later, Beeper Mini came back, reconfigured with an added requirement—users had to log in with an Apple account. Then the app started breaking again. The most recent Beeper fix requires users to register an Apple account with a Mac computer.
Beeper co-founder Eric Migicovsky denied Apple’s concerns. “Beeper Mini made communication between Android and iPhone users more secure,” he said, adding, “The changes Apple made were designed to protect the lock-in effect of iMessage.”
He said he plans to share the code base publicly so security researchers—and perhaps Apple—can vet it.
Beeper Mini originally charged users $2 a month, but it became free after the developers could no longer guarantee functionality.
Will was, of course, disappointed. He hopes Apple will support iMessage for Android, in the same way it brought iTunes to Windows so many years ago. I reminded him that the iTunes Store was profitable for Apple, and iMessage doesn’t generate any revenue.
“If I’m willing to pay a couple dollars a month for Beeper, then I would be willing to pay a couple of dollars a month for an Apple version,” he said.
Better green bubbles
In a 2013 internal email, Apple software chief Craig Federighi wrote, “I am concerned iMessage on Android would simply serve to remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones.”
Beeper Mini said it used a technique that reverse-engineered Apple’s iMessage protocol. The iPhone maker has worked to block the app’s access. PHOTO: BEEPER
My colleague Joanna Stern asked Federighi about it in October 2022 at WSJ Live. A cross-platform iMessage didn’t seem like it was “going to serve the world,” Federighi told her.
So iMessage for Android is unlikely—but Apple is giving the green bubbles a makeover.
Last month, Apple said it would adopt a protocol called rich communications systems, or RCS, to replace standard SMS text messages next year. Google campaigned publicly for the iPhone maker to adopt the standard, which already works on Android phones.
We don’t know how exactly Apple will implement RCS on iPhones, however. It could support non-iMessage text exchanges with high-resolution media, Wi-Fi-enabled messaging, typing indicators and read receipts. (Encryption is a separate matter.)
Android folks won’t get their own Memojis—let alone blue bubbles—but RCS should improve one-on-one texts between iPhone and Android users. RCS “will work alongside iMessage, which will continue to be the best and most secure messaging experience for Apple users,” an Apple spokeswoman said.
Alas, this likely won’t fix iMessage-Android group chats.
Though Apple is “working hard to shut Beeper Mini down,” Migicovsky told me, the fight to turn Android bubbles blue is far from over.
This past Monday, a bipartisan group of U.S. legislators, including Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) and Mike Lee (R., Utah), sent a letter to the Justice Department concerning “Apple’s potential anticompetitive treatment of the Beeper Mini messaging application.” The legislators suggested investigating whether Apple blocking the app violates antitrust laws.
Unfortunately for Will, there’s no telling how much longer Beeper will be back online. He’ll need to find another way into the family chat.
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