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 Texts.com 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.
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Beeper is adding the ability to login to chat apps without using its cloud service as a middleman.
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.
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