News Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: ‘We took steps to protect our users’

[The Helper]

A few companies have tried to find ways to make iMessage work outside Apple’s purview. Beeper succeeded — loudly. Apple fought back.

A few days after the team at Beeper proudly announced a way for users to send blue-bubble iMessages directly from their Android devices without any weird relay servers, and about 24 hours after it became clear Apple had taken steps to shut that down, Apple has shared its take on the issue.

The company’s stance here is fairly predictable: it says it’s simply trying to do right by users, and protect the privacy and security of their iMessages. “We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage,” Apple senior PR manager Nadine Haija said in a statement.

Here’s the statement in full:

At Apple, we build our products and services with industry-leading privacy and security technologies designed to give users control of their data and keep personal information safe. We took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage. These techniques posed significant risks to user security and privacy, including the potential for metadata exposure and enabling unwanted messages, spam, and phishing attacks. We will continue to make updates in the future to protect our users.

Apple responds to the Beeper iMessage saga: ‘We took steps to protect our users’

Beeper Mini made Android users blue bubbles. Apple shut it down after only a few days.

www.theverge.com