The short-lived saga of Beeper Mini, a bold attempt to make iMessage compatible with Android, finally seems to have truly come to an end

When we last wrote about Beeper Mini just before Christmas, the app was dead for all but the most dedicated of Android users who wanted to recreate the iMessage experience The workaround was a complicated process involving an old jailbroken iPhone (always connected to Wi-Fi) and a Mac or Linux computer for setup purposes

With relatively few users trying to jump through these hoops, it appeared that Apple might leave it alone, but apparently not Many Beeper users who followed this procedure found their Macs blocked from using iMessage

Many of the banned accounts were unbanned following a request for comment from The New York Times, but Beeper has now "disabled the ability for users to initiate new iMessage connections from the Beeper Cloud at this time"

Currently connected accounts are not automatically disconnected, but can be manually disconnected if desired; simply open Beeper Desktop, click the gear icon, then "Chat Networks," then "iMessage," and finally "Delete"

However, the company does not believe this is a necessary step" Just to be super clear - this is not a widespread problem and has affected 30 users," it wrote to X "Apple quickly changed course, we don't think they are going to try this b******* again"

Indeed, 30 of the 3,500 customers reported using the bridge represents only 085%, so it is not necessarily widespread as of this writing

Still, removing the Beeper Cloud iMessage bridge for new users feels like the final nail in a coffin that was already pretty comprehensively sealed; the Beeper Mini app was already removed from the Google Play store earlier this month, and the Beeper Mini app was removed from the Google Play store earlier this month and Beeper had indicated at the time that the December workaround was the last attempt to resolve the issue

Nonetheless, the company is clearly unhappy with Apple over the matter, perhaps understandably so given that it reportedly cost $750,000 to build the iMessage bridge

"Regardless of what happened before, the only question now is [omitted]," the company wrote in another X post" Is a hardware ban (without warning) an acceptable action for Apple to take against paying customers who choose to use a third-party client (Beeper) to access iMessage on their own Mac computers?"

The company will continue its original mission of creating "the best chat app on the planet"

As for Apple, the company has promised to finally support RCS messaging later this year, but it is not yet clear how comprehensive that will be We already know that it will not close the green and blue chat bubble divide