Hacker News Reader

Comment by the_gastropod | Hacker News Reader

> Though you'll have to enlighten me what exactly it is they are stealing from Apple since Apple doesn't charge money for iMessage for there to be any theft or loss of revenue for them. Unless your definition of theft is "YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR?!"

Apple doesn't charge money for iMessage in much the same way Microsoft doesn't charge money for MS Paint. iMessage is included as part of an Apple hardware purchase. Running a messaging system that likely handles billions of messages—with photo and video attachments—every day is not free. Apple's device sales subsidize the cost Apple pays to run this system.

Beeper using this system by exploiting a technical loophole is theft in a much more direct way than pirating a copy of an audio track is, I think.

View on HN

>Apple's device sales subsidize the cost Apple pays to run this system.

And Beeper bought and paid for the Apple devices which they use to route iMessage. What's the problem? Looks fair and square to me.

Apple is legally allowed to try to block me for breaking their ToS, but legally, I bought the device, I can do whatever I want with it since it's my property now, including trying to route iMessage on my device and my account if hat's what I want.

It's still not stealing because I paid Apple for the HW, and stealing means breaking the law, not breaking Apple's ToS which are silly and worthless anyway.

> And Beeper bought and paid for the Apple devices which they use to route iMessage. What's the problem? Looks fair and square to me.

I'm assuming you're confused here and not intentionally misleading. Beeper Cloud (formerly just Beeper) uses Apple devices to route iMessages. This is legit and as far as I know hasn't been blocked or stopped in any way.

Beeper Mini (the Android app in discussion) doesn't use this system and is instead exploiting a loophole left to allow older Apple devices to use the platform.

Stealing is also not only a legal term, but can be used in a purely ethical context too. I don't think anybody's arguing that Beeper or their users are breaking the law.

They didn’t buy hardware to make Beeper Mini work. They are using an exploit in the protocols to make this work.

Be honest, if Apple was the party taking someone else’s property without permission, and then selling it for their own gain, would you still be defending this? I wager you wouldn’t.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com