Beeper says Apple is blocking some iMessages, but there’s a fix

By wazup on December 14, 2023 Comments Closed / 85 views

Beeper’s looking into what might be going on. It’s unclear if Apple brought down the hammer again.

By Jay Peters, a news editor who writes about technology, video games, and virtual worlds. He’s submitted several accepted emoji proposals to the Unicode Consortium.

The chats show messages in blue bubbles.

Here we go again: After investigating reports that some users aren’t getting iMessages on Beeper Mini and Beeper Cloud, Beeper says that Apple seems to be “deliberately blocking” iMessages from being delivered to about five percent of Beeper Mini users. The company says that uninstalling and reinstalling the app fixes the issue and that it’s working on a broader fix (though that apparently won’t be in place tonight).

Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment about Beeper’s new claim, and it hasn’t replied to my original request for comment, either. But given that the company has already blocked Beeper Mini before, it’s not too surprising that it seems to be taking action against the app again.

The issues appear to have started as early as about 6PM ET; at that time, one Verge staffer reported that they were no longer receiving iMessages in Beeper Mini. We saw that some users on Reddit have reported not getting iMessages, either, but others say things are still working for them, which would track with Beeper’s explanation that only some users are affected.

Beeper’s status site isn’t reporting any issues. If you’re experiencing issues with iMessages on Beeper Cloud, Beeper says to contact Beeper Help — “we can fix it very easily for you if you let us know.”

Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky apologized to users Wednesday evening in a post on X (formerly Twitter). “I understand how ridiculously annoying this uncertainty is for our users,” he said. “I won’t feel bad if you duck out for now. We’ll let you know when things are back up and running.” He also invoked Epic Games’ huge win against Google in court as a rallying cry: “@TimSweeneyEpic and Epic won this week against Big Tech. We have a chance. We’re not giving up.”

Beeper launched the original version of Beeper Mini, which let Android owners use iMessage with just their phone numbers, on December 5th, but Apple found a way to shut that down just three days later. Beeper got Beeper Mini working again on Monday, but it only works with an Apple ID. We’ll have to wait and see if this supposed deliberate block remains just to five percent of Beeper Mini users or if Apple finds a way to block more.

Update December 13th, 10:28PM ET: Added post about what Beeper Cloud users should do if they are affected by issues.