this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
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There shouldn't be any back end beeper servers with this implementation if they really do what they say and interface directly with Apple servers.
It's a bridge for notifications. Since Apple's APN notification servers require a persistent connection to work, meaning that the application must be running continuously to receive notifications, the Beeper servers push those notifications (messages) to your phone.
This means that the application does not need to be running continuously to receive messages.
Exactly. They host the Apple equivalent to GMS, which is called APN (or is it ANP? Apple Notification Protocol? I forget, but the Bubbler Mini devs explain it well)
Here's a simple picture with minimal reading required.
This is very different to the technology used in the free/wait-list Beeper Cloud app and all the other previous attempts at an iMessage for Android app.
To summarize:
All messages are sent directly between your device and Apple's servers. You do not even need an AppleID. There is a cloud server involved but it's only job is to send push notifications to Android so they app knows when to download new messages (securely with iMessage encryption) from Apple's servers.
No message contents are sent through the cloud server, it just notifies your device when there are new messages. This is necessary because Apple servers obviously do not support Android push notifications.
Running BlueBubbles at the moment, eagerly awaiting someone to build a self hosted implementation of this so I can stop relying on my macos VM.
This implementation I think also allows you to use the phone number of your android device, which is a feature that not even the BlueBubbles method has been able to do.
Beeper Mini does not require a Mac VM or any Apple products. There's no cloud proxy to self host. It registers your phone number directly with Apple's servers, you don't even need an AppleID at all, just like on an iPhone.
It's indistinguishable from an iPhone on Apple's end and your iMessage encryption keys never leave your phone
Yeah I know I was referring to the notifications, because my understanding is that you need a separate server to forward notifications to your device from the APN...? Idk maybe the firebase free tier can handle this without the need for a desktop app running somewhere.
Notifications are generated after the message is pulled from Apple's servers to your device.
The push messages just tell your device a message is available to be pulled. It doesn't contain any message contents or metadata.
It's basically just "you have a new message waiting" and then your phone will ping Apple's server to request the message.