Latest news with #Beeper
Yahoo
18-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Beeper Relaunch Lets You Link Your Chat Apps Without the Cloud, but Still No iMessage
Beeper, which was once known for attempting to provide access to the iMessage network on non-Apple devices, is relaunching itself Wednesday with a continued focus on being a texting hub for bringing together conversations from many other services. This app first launched last year after the company was acquired by Automattic and was merged with the similar service. The biggest difference with the new launch is that Beeper is adding the ability to link your chat apps together using just your phone. Previously, Beeper relied on a cloud service for accessing each chat app and backing up your texts. While that cloud service provided the ability to sync your texts in the event you lost your device, it also led to concerns over the loss of end-to-end encryption since copies of your texts are still being saved by a third party. Beeper's new ability to cut out the cloud will mean that messages will be sent directly to your device over whichever chat network your texts are being sent, but Beeper itself will still need to be authorized to log in to networks like WhatsApp, Signal, Slack and others to connect to those networks. Beeper CEO Kishan Bagaria said in an interview with CNET that this more direct connection should make these conversations as secure as using the chat apps directly, but notes that Beeper isn't meant to fully supplant those apps. "For something like Instagram, for example, technically we will not support the feeds, so if you want the feeds data or you want the profile data, you go back to the official app," Bagaria said. Bagaria said the relaunched app's focus is on people who are "super online" but too busy to manage chat apps. Beeper is also launching two premium tiers, which add additional features or offer features more tailored to social media managers who may be managing multiple texting services. Beeper Plus at $10 a month or $100 a year adds features like the ability to send later, set reminders to return to conversations, use an Incognito Mode for previewing messages without them getting marked as read, and AI voice note transcriptions. Some of these features are natively available in some of the chat apps that Beeper connects to, but could provide organizational help when wanting to collate together presences across multiple networks. Beeper is also offering a $49-per-month "Plus Plus" tier, which Bagaria said provides unlimited access for professional use. Beeper's current rendition is reminiscent of the service Trillian, which at one point interconnected instant messenger services like AOL Instant Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Chat and others. However, as those services either shut down or disabled integration, Trillian has instead become its own instant messenger service with free and premium tiers.
Android Authority
17-07-2025
- Android Authority
Beeper's all-in-one messenger updated with better encryption and paid perks
Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority TL;DR The all-in-one messaging app, Beeper, is getting new security features that enhance chat encryption. It also adds new paid 'Plus' and 'Plus Plus' tiers with features such as message scheduling, incognito mode, and multiple accounts for the same apps. However, there's still no mention of iMessage support, which was abandoned in late 2023 after Apple repeatedly shot down Beeper's efforts. If you juggle multiple messaging apps and have ever tried to search for a solution to consolidate them, you might have stumbled upon Beeper. It is also known as the app that attempted to break through Apple's walled garden, allowing non-Apple users to send blue-bubble texts from an Android device. Although Beeper failed to achieve a permanent solution to the Apple problem, it has handled the consolidation part well and is now building upon it to bring better security to chats, along with some premium features. Beeper recently announced it was overhauling the tech stack for more secure chats. While it previously relayed messages from multiple apps through an online interface called Beeper Cloud, the new app now connects directly to individual messaging apps. In essence, that allows messages protected with end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for all messaging platforms that inherently support it. In its previous version, Beeper supported encryption for select messengers, including WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. However, messages would undergo two stages of encryption and decryption: first, when the message was sent from the Beeper app to the cloud bridge, and then again at the bridge before it was sent to the particular app's servers. The new update cuts the extra step in between, sending messages directly to the respective apps. In addition to the updated chat relay, Beeper is introducing a premium model with extra perks. Beeper Plus starts at $9.99 and introduces features such as: support for up to three accounts from the same app, message scheduling and reminders, Incognito mode to view messages without sending read receipts or appearing online, voice note transcriptions, custom app icons, and the ability to add up to ten accounts, up from five on the free version. Another 'Beeper Plus Plus' tier costs $49.99 a month and removes limits on the number of accounts. Beeper Additionally, as a perk to the existing Beeper users, earlier free-tier users will be able to add up to 12 accounts for free. Meanwhile, those who previously paid $10 to get early access to Beeper before it went completely free in March 2023 will now be eligible for lifetime free Beeper Plus access. However, there is no mention of iMessage support returning, and we can assume the folks behind the chat app have laid the topic to rest after open-sourcing its iMessage bridge in December 2023 and later being acquired by Automattic. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
The Verge
17-07-2025
- The Verge
Beeper is getting some upgrades.
Posted Jul 17, 2025 at 12:18 AM UTC Beeper is getting some upgrades. The highlights: Beeper is 'gradually' deprecating Beeper Cloud in favor of connecting directly to other messaging networks, and there's a new Beeper Plus subscription tier with some useful features. You can get an idea of the updates in bento box below or read all the details in Beeper's blog post.
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Beeper's all-in-one messaging app relaunches with an on-device model and premium upgrades
Multi-service messaging app Beeper, which allows people to connect to all their chat apps from one interface, is relaunching its app on Wednesday to offer a more secure version that no longer requires use of its own cloud services. In addition, Beeper is introducing premium offerings that provide access to more accounts than its free tier and include power-user features like reminders, the ability to send messages later, an incognito mode to read messages without marking them read, AI voice note transcriptions, and more. Now owned by maker Automattic, which bought Beeper for $125 million in 2024, the app has almost entirely integrated with competitor which Automattic also acquired the year prior for $50 million. With a combined 30-person team (including contractors) and now operating under the Beeper brand, the messaging app supports WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, X, Telegram, Signal, Matrix, Slack, Google Chat, Discord, LinkedIn, and Google Messages (SMS/RCS). On Mac computers only, Beeper can also connect users with their iMessage chats, though Apple has shut down this access in prior versions. The overall goal, according to Automattic, is to simplify the problem of having too many messaging apps to keep up with, while also keeping those chats secure. The app previously first connected with Beeper Cloud before communicating with the messaging network, said Beeper CEO Kishan Bagaria. While that system remains the default, users will now have the option of switching to Beeper on device, which will see the app connecting directly to the messaging network and skipping the middleman. 'That ensures that end-to-end encryption is preserved and your privacy is as good as the official app,' Bagaria told TechCrunch in an interview ahead of the app's relaunch. Whether the companies involved will appreciate having their own apps bypassed, however, remains to be seen. 'We have good relationships with some of these companies, and some of them are OK with this,' Bagaria said. 'Others, we have not really heard from much.' To stave off any potential shutdowns by messaging network providers, Beeper aims to support the business models of the first-party apps whenever possible. For example, if Telegram is showing ads, those ads will be shown in Beeper, too. In addition, EU regulations requiring that messaging platforms be interoperable could put pressure on messaging app providers to leave a solution like Beeper's alone. Alongside the relaunch, there will now be an option to upgrade to a new $9.99 per month premium plan, Beeper Plus, which allows users to connect with 10 messaging services instead of just the five that free users have access to. In addition, Plus subscribers have the option to schedule messages to send later, can set reminders to follow up on chats, read messages in incognito mode so they don't feel pressured to respond immediately, access multiple accounts per network, view AI voice note transcriptions (processed via OpenAI's Whisper model with user consent), and swap out their app icon for a custom version. An even higher tier, Beeper Plus Plus, which starts at $49.99 per month, offers access to unlimited accounts and is designed with the needs of businesses or social media managers in mind. (Annual subscriptions are also available at a discounted price of $99.99 per year for Beeper Plus and $499 per year for Beeper Plus Plus.) After Automattic acquired Beeper, the company combined its team with to develop a new product that offered the best of both services. With Wednesday's relaunch, those apps are now 99% integrated, Bagaria said, as only a few smaller features remain to be ported over. Eventually, Automattic's latest acquisition, the personal CRM Clay, which may be later rebranded), will also be integrated with Beeper, though it will remain a stand-alone app. 'It will mostly be built on top of the Beeper platform — it'll stay complimentary,' Bagaria said. 'Clay is an amazing app [as it] works today. Then, with Beaver, it can just ingest more interactions and data, which will make it like 2x to 10x better. Once that is done, I'm sure Clay can be a very powerful product.' Beeper today has millions of registered users, including those from A small portion of those who are still using are now being offered the option to migrate to Beeper, since it has added the on-device technology, which they prefer. Bagaria said there may still be some remaining issues around reliability when moving to the on-device model, but those are being worked out as edge cases pop up. At some later point, Beeper Cloud will be deprecated once the company is sure the on-device model is capable of being everyone's daily driver. Further down the road, Beeper aims to make its data available to other companies, with user permission and controls to protect privacy. For instance, an MCP (model context protocol) Beeper one day could let users connect to chat apps via Claude or ChatGPT to ask it things like 'summarize all my important messages from this evening.' Those developments will take some time, as Bagaria says he's also a 'very privacy-conscious user,' and would want a solution that's very transparent about what data is accessed and when, and one that allows users to even manually say yes or no to data requests, perhaps. 'We also don't want to have server farms where we have models trained on your data. That's a complete no-no,' he said.
TechCrunch
16-07-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Beeper's all-in-one messaging app relaunches with an on-device model and premium upgrades
Multi-service messaging app Beeper, which allows people to connect to all their chat apps from one interface, is relaunching its app on Wednesday to offer a more secure version that no longer requires use of its own cloud services. In addition, Beeper is introducing premium offerings that provide access to more accounts than its free tier, and include power-user features like reminders, the ability to send messages later, an incognito mode to read messages without marking them read, AI voice note transcriptions, and more. Now owned by maker Automattic, which bought Beeper for $125 million in 2024, the app has now almost entirely integrated with competitor which Automattic also acquired the year prior for $50 million. With a combined 30-person team (including contractors) and now operating under the Beeper brand, the messaging app supports WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, X, Telegram, Signal, Matrix, Slack, Google Chat, Discord, LinkedIn, and Google Messages (SMS/RCS). On Mac computers only, Beeper can also connect users with their iMessage chats, though Apple has shut down this access in prior versions. Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper The overall goal, according to Automattic, is to simplify the problem of having too many messaging apps to keep up with, while also keeping those chats secure. The app previously first connected with Beeper Cloud before communicating with the messaging network, said Beeper CEO Kishan Bagaria. While that system remains the default, users will now have the option of switching to Beeper on device, which will see the app connecting directly to the messaging network and skipping the middleman. 'That ensures that end-to-end encryption is preserved and your privacy is as good as the official app,' Bagaria told TechCrunch in an interview ahead of the app's relaunch. Whether or not the companies involved will appreciate having their own apps bypassed, however, remains to be seen. 'We have good relationships with some of these companies, and some of them are OK with this,' Bagaria said. 'Others, we have not really heard from much.' Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper To stave off any potential shutdowns by messaging network providers, Beeper aims to support the business models of the first-party apps whenever possible. For example, if Telegram is showing ads, those ads will be shown in Beeper, too. In addition, EU regulations requiring interoperable messaging platforms could put pressure on messaging app providers to leave a solution like Beeper's alone. Alongside the relaunch, there will now be an option to upgrade to a new $9.99 per month premium plan, Beeper Plus, which allows users to connect with 10 messaging services instead of just the five that free users have access to. In addition, Plus subscribers have the option to schedule messages to send later, can set reminders to follow up on chats, read messages in incognito mode so they don't feel pressured to respond immediately, access multiple accounts per network, view AI voice note transcriptions (processed via OpenAI's Whisper model with user consent), and swap out their app icon for a custom version. An even higher tier, Beeper Plus Plus, which starts at $49.99 per month, offers access to unlimited accounts and is designed with the needs of businesses or social media managers in mind. (Annual subscriptions are also available at a discounted price of $99.99 per year for Beeper Plus and $499 per year for Beeper Plus Plus.) Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper Following Beeper's acquisition by Automattic, the company combined its team with to develop a new product that offered the best of both services. With Wednesday's relaunch, those apps are now 99% integrated, Bagaria said, as only a few smaller features remain to be ported over. Eventually, Automattic's latest acquisition, the personal CRM Clay which may be later rebranded), will also be integrated with Beeper, though it will remain a standalone app. 'It will mostly be built on top of the Beeper platform — it'll stay complimentary,' Bagaria said. 'Clay is an amazing app [as it] works today. Then, with Beaver, it can just ingest more interactions and data, which will make it like two to 10x better. Once that is done, I'm sure Clay can be a very powerful product.' Beeper today has millions of registered users, including those from A small portion of those who are still using are now being offered the option migrate to Beeper, since it has added the on-device technology, which they prefer. Image Credits:Automattic/Beeper Bagaria said there may still be some remaining issues around reliability when moving to the on-device model, but those are being worked out as edge cases pop up. At some later point, Beeper Cloud will be deprecated once the company is sure the on-device model is capable of being everyone's daily driver. Further down the road, Beeper aims to make its data available to other companies, with user permission and controls to protect privacy. For instance, an MCP Beeper one day could let users connect to chat apps via Claude or ChatGPT to ask it things like 'summarize all my important messages from this evening.' Those developments will take some time, as Bagaria says he's also a 'very privacy-conscious user,' and would want a solution that's very transparent about what data is accessed and when, and one that allows users to even manually say yes or no to data requests, perhaps. 'We also don't want to have server farms where we have models trained on your data. That's a complete no, no,' he said.
