OPINION: If Apple really wants to learn from history, it will leave Beeper Mini and PyPush alone

[iWin32]

Chances are if you’re reading this forum, you are a fan of Apple to some extent.  Apple has developed a tech ecosystem that makes anyone with an iPhone or MacBook think twice before switching to Android or a Windows laptop.  The key to much of this synergy is software-hardware integration.  But other times, it’s simply the tight integration with their services in their own ecosystem that makes using Apple products so appealing.

 

One such service is iMessage.  iMessage is how iPhone users text each other, with iMessage supporting images, video, documents, read receipts, and end-to-end encryption out of the box for a rich messaging experience.  However, iMessage is exclusive to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and other Apple operating systems.  This means that if users want to message someone who is not an iPhone user (aka Android users), they are forced to use SMS, an outdated and insecure text messaging protocol that doesn’t have any of iMessage’s selling points, including end-to-end encryption.  For years, Google as the developer of the Android operating system has pushed for Apple to support RCS, an updated and open messaging standard that allows much of iMessage’s old selling points.  This was dubbed the “blue bubble vs. green bubble” debate, as messages sent with SMS in Apple’s Messages app are green while iMessage messages are blue.  It was recently announced that Apple would support RCS in a future update to iOS, albeit without end-to-end encryption.

 

For years, there was no way of getting iMessage support on Android.  Apple does not offer an iMessage for Android app.  And there was no way to get iMessage support on non-Apple devices, including Android, without relying on some Apple device (like a Mac) that you owned yourself or had cloud access to… until recently.  Beeper Mini was a new Android app that allowed you to use iMessage on Android, even using your Android phone number.  And this was without questionable methods such as logging into a Mac Mini in the cloud.  It relied on PyPush, an open-source reimplementation of an iMessage client.  This meant that end-to-end encryption was handled on the device, and communicated directly with Apple’s own iMessage servers, all without needing a man-in-the-middle of some sort as before.  This truly was a reverse-engineered implementation of iMessage on an Android device.

 

Unfortunately, before you go to the Play Store and start searching for this app to download, I have some bad news.  Apple has stepped in and “closed the loophole” that PyPush and Beeper Mini relied on, once again locking iMessage to those with Apple devices.  Apple has said that they’re doing this out of concern for the security and privacy of iMessage users, which many tech people have rightfully called out as being BS.  Anyway, the developers for PyPush previously discovered a method to continue using iMessage with an Apple ID instead of your Android phone number, but Apple has now shut that down as well.  This seems to be the beginning of a cat-and-mouse game, one that Apple would be wise to quit while they’re ahead.

 

If you’ve researched the early days of the Hackintosh scene, you’ll know that Apple also tried a cat-and-mouse game trying to stop people from booting Mac OS X Tiger on their non-Apple computers.  One can argue copyright infringement, breaking the EULA, or violating the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions as legal reasons why Hackintoshing is illegal.  Putting that aside for a second, back when Hackintoshes were primarily using leaked versions of the Intel Developer Transition Kit software, bypassing Apple’s security to get the OS to boot was relatively easy.  But when it came time to use updated versions of the OS after the first real Intel Macs sold, there were new obstacles to overcome.  The TPM that was used in the DTK wasn’t used at all, and instead, Apple used a different DRM scheme that relied on encrypted binaries and libraries that relied on keys stored in the SMC, a proprietary power management chip that was exclusive to Apple hardware.  Apple also used EFI firmware instead of the legacy BIOS that PCs and the DTK used, and the kernel was updated to rely more heavily on the EFI boot process to start.  These new challenges meant that for a brief period in 2006, Hackintosh users were stuck on old DTK OS builds.

 

Then, on Valentine’s Day in 2006, a kernel patch was released for Hackintosh users to boot Mac OS X Tiger version 10.4.4 by crg92.  Apple struck the first blow in the Hackintosh cat-and-mouse within hours, pushing the 10.4.5 update that broke this patch.  Two weeks later, the same hacker developed a patch for that version of Tiger.  Then, in early April, Apple pushed the 10.4.6 update, and yet again, hackers developed patches to get the OS to boot on non-Apple PCs.  This continued until 10.4.8, which posed all sorts of new challenges in getting the OS to work properly, never mind boot.  But hackers developed patches for every version of Tiger.  Leopard was a whole new beast, but hackers got patches out there.  Then, of course, 2008 introduced the Boot 132 swap CD method to get the vanilla OS to boot and install without relying on a single patch.  This made the Mac OS X experience for Hackintosh users a lot more like a Mac, being able to update straight from Apple without issue.

 

Eventually, Apple stopped the cat-and-mouse game for Hackintosh users and started allowing Hackintosh users to continue using the OS, even as technology evolved and newer boot loaders like Clover and OpenCore became commonplace and made the experience closer to what you could expect on official Apple hardware.  And what has Apple done about it?  Not a whole lot.  Apart from refusing to provide support for Hackintosh users, they haven’t done anything to stop people from running macOS on their non-Apple computers, even though that would be well within their rights to do.  And it’s not for lack of time.  They had ample opportunity to shut it down, but they didn’t.  The only time Apple took legal action against Hackintoshes was when a company called Psystar was selling their own computers that ran Mac OS X Leopard.  And they won in court.  What distinguishes Psystar and Hackintoshes (as well as this Beeper Mini effort) is that no one was profiting from installing Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware.  Psystar did, and since losing the lawsuit, they are defunct.  And this brings us to an important question.

 

In a YouTube video from The Computer Clan about a similar commercial Hackintosh entity in June 2020, he mentioned what is probably the most-asked question related to Apple’s stance on Hackintoshes: Why doesn’t Apple simply license the ability to install macOS on non-Apple hardware?  Ken went on to explain the history of the Macintosh Clone program from the mid-1990s and how Steve Jobs himself shut it down shortly after rejoining the company.  Steve explained this as purely financial reasons, as OEMs in the Mac Clone program weren’t willing to pay the higher price Steve Jobs cited as providing a “fair percentage of the cost”.  Ken explains that Apple learned from history and decided it wasn’t financially worth the risk.  Probably the second most-asked question that’s asked about Apple’s policy on Hackintoshes is, “If running macOS on non-Apple hardware is a violation of Apple’s End-User License Agreement, why hasn’t Apple gone after Hackintosh users, either by pushing out an update that breaks Hackintoshes altogether or by taking legal action against them?”  Like the first question, there’s a huge rabbit hole of reasons to go down.  The best answer I can come up with is it makes no sense business-wise to do so.  Unless you’re making money by selling Hackintoshes or offering commercial Hackintosh services (think Psystar), chances are you’re a tech hobbyist who at the end of the day, is either a current or future Apple customer.  I can attest to this.  My first experience running Mac OS X was through Hackintoshing, and I eventually bought several Macs and iPhones.  Going after individual Hackintosh users would only hurt their own customers.

 

Furthermore, Apple has gone from a malevolent view of Hackintoshes to a more ambivalent view.  There were several times over the years before the transition to Apple Silicon that Apple could technically make it extremely hard to boot macOS on non-Apple hardware.  For example, when kernel extension (driver) signing was implemented as a way to protect user’s security by not allowing malicious kexts to run, Apple could have used this as an opportunity to stop Hackintosh-only kexts (like FakeSMC) from loading.  Instead, it included those kexts on their own exclude list, essentially whitelisting them from these new requirements.  And now that the only Intel Macs compatible with the latest versions of macOS have a T2 chip, Apple could have updated their DRM scheme to require the presence of a T2 chip to boot.  But they haven’t.  Even the Apple Silicon transition (which will one day kill Hackintoshes with Intel Macs) wasn’t done to stop PCs from running macOS.  It was done because, much like the PowerPC systems before it, Apple couldn’t create the kinds of Mac computers they wanted with the current trajectory of Intel.  When the tech hobbyists who are finding ways to run macOS on non-Apple hardware aren’t otherwise a direct threat to Apple, it makes more sense for them to just let it be.

 

One could argue that Beeper is somehow different than Hackintoshing given the fact they were charging for access to their services.  However, you have to remember that unlike Hackintoshing, which uses the entire proprietary OS belonging to Apple in a way that violates its EULA, Beeper Mini isn’t using a lick of Apple’s code, open source or otherwise.  It’s more closer to how WINE implements the Win32 APIs on Unix-like operating systems.  Someone reverse-engineered how iMessage works and developed an open-source alternative iMessage client that’s not reliant on Apple’s proprietary operating system.  And if WINE has a commercial offshoot in CodeWeavers’s CrossOver software without being illegal or unethical, then offering a commercial reimplementation of iMessage isn’t illegal or unethical either.

 

Apple’s cat-and-mouse game against Beeper is only being done to prevent consumer choice.  This makes it closer to how DRM developers operate than any sort of innovation or security argument that Apple is saying.  And on DRM being a cat-and-mouse game, a wise man once said, “The problem, of course, is that there are many smart people in the world, some with a lot of time on their hands, who love to discover such secrets and publish a way for everyone to get free (and stolen) music.  They are often successful in doing just that, so any company trying to protect content using a DRM must frequently update it with new and harder to discover secrets.”  Who was that man?  Mike Masnick?  Cory Doctorow?  An EFF staffer?  Nope, though I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that.  That’s a quote from Steve Jobs himself, in his famous “Thoughts on Music” open letter to the RIAA.  In it, Steve Jobs argued for a future where any digital music store can offer DRM-free music for sale, allowing interoperability between devices and ecosystems.  And to the record labels’ credit, they listened, and we now live in that future.  But Apple’s pro-innovation stance here doesn’t hold up when it comes to Beeper.

 

One of the most ironic things about this whole story is that the great Apple co-founder, the late Steve Jobs, would probably be against to some extent what Apple is doing to Beeper Mini.  Sure, Steve Jobs called Android a “stolen product” that he was “willing to go thermonuclear on” to shut it down.  But that was likely referring to the suspicion that someone on Apple’s board was also working at Google while the Android OS was in its infancy.  Corporate espionage aside, you also have to remember that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak got their start in business not at Apple, but by selling “blue boxes” designed to hack the phone network (also known as “Phone Phreaking”).  While this was no doubt illegal, Apple later formed from these two as a much more legitimate endeavor.  Now, Apple is using its corporate dominance to veto innovation it doesn’t like that is a lot more legal than Phone Phreaking.  This isn’t just morally unjustifiable, but it’s a sign of monopolistic behavior.

 

Apple doesn’t want to create iMessage for Android, saying that if people really want to use it, they should buy an iPhone.  This is part of their strategy to sell phones.  Beeper Mini comes along and does what Apple won’t, and they immediately try to shut it down.  This isn’t for security reasons as Apple says.  If it were, they wouldn’t be forcing iPhone-to-Android texting users to use an unencrypted protocol like SMS.  And even when Apple does implement RCS, it will be without end-to-end encryption even though the standard supports it.  Apple is doing this merely to keep their profits because they know that if Android people can use iMessage, that will be one less reason for people to buy an iPhone.  That may be a compelling reason to shut down Beeper Mini from a corporate business perspective, but not for consumers.  Besides, it’s not like Beeper Mini’s implementation is for the faint of heart.  Their latest workaround requires access to a Mac to work.  People who want to go out of their way technologically to make iMessage work on Android aren’t a threat to Apple’s iPhone business.  If people want a seamless experience with iMessage, the recommendation is still to buy an iPhone, just like the recommendation to people who want to use macOS seamlessly isn’t to Hackintosh their current computer but to go out and buy a Mac.  If Apple truly wants to learn from history, as The Computer Clan puts it, they will follow the example of the Hackintosh and leave Beeper Mini alone.

[STLVNUB]

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