Proper, and this can be a very US-centric drawback, as a result of elsewhere these third-party messaging apps are extra dominant.
Sure. So iMessage is built-in within the iPhone working system in a really deep approach. However that’s not “premium.” That’s anticompetitive.
You wrote in a blog post late final month that each time there’s an outage to Beeper Mini your credibility takes successful and you can’t hold enjoying the cat-and-mouse recreation with Apple to maintain it working. However you additionally mentioned you’re nonetheless decided to construct the very best chat app on earth. What does it seem like?
Nicely, Beeper Mini was referred to as that for a purpose. It was a secondary app with a extra restricted function set than our major app, Beeper. Beeper helps 15 chat networks. Beeper Mini supported one. So we determined to refocus our power again to our major app.
So, theoretically, Beeper might develop into a very nice chat app that competes with Sign or WhatsApp, the place each events—iPhone customers and Android customers—obtain your app and go to that app container and message, proper? However Beeper Mini was making an attempt to really deliver interoperability to 2 totally different programs. How dedicated are you continue to to that imaginative and prescient?
That’s an necessary level. We’re in 2024, and you’ve got a portion of your contact listing on every of those totally different apps as a result of entrenched gamers have gone out of their solution to make it very laborious so that you can go away their platforms.
It will be virtually unattainable to begin a brand-new prompt message app immediately as a result of the entrenched gamers have such a powerful maintain on being the default app on an iPhone or having a large set of customers. So the way in which that you just construct a “new” chat app is you interoperate with the prevailing networks. And also you make the transition as clear and straightforward as potential. That’s what we’re engaged on.
A part of our imaginative and prescient is to embrace an open supply protocol that already exists, Matrix, and so if you use Beeper, you’ll get an account on this open supply protocol. You’ll be able to nonetheless message your folks utilizing all of your different apps, however if you’d like, you possibly can ship them a message from that open supply protocol as properly. Proper now that’s not the first focus for us, however it is going to be over time as increasingly more individuals be a part of this community.
Nicely, thanks for taking the time to speak, no pun meant.
You recognize, you requested, “Have been we anticipating this response?” No. The reality is, we constructed this app and we’re extraordinarily proud of the way it got here out, as a result of individuals had been like, “Wow, this can be a nice expertise in comparison with the form of crappy inexperienced bubble chats we’d been having earlier than.” All of it occurred fairly shortly after that.
