Beeper needed a fresh start. Late last year, the company bet big on a hacked iMessage app for Android, which Apple shut down within days. Beeper tried to fight back but eventually threw in the towel just weeks later in a widely reported defeat.
“December has been a wild ride,” says Eric Migicovsky, co-founder of Beeper The Verge.
With dreams of an iMessage app dead, Beeper went back to square one to figure out the next steps. And the answer was to stop fighting Apple and go back to our original goal: bringing every chat app—except iMessage—into one place. “We refocused on our primary mission,” says Migicovsky, “which is to build the best chat app in the world.”
The new Beeper app launched in beta last week, and it’s a complete overhaul of the app the Beeper team originally worked on. It doesn’t turn your green Android bubbles blue — like Beeper Mini briefly did — but it does a lot of other cool things that make it a lot easier to message friends you have on different platforms.
I was never more aware of all the people I was a ghost to
It starts with your text messages. Beeper’s inbox can pull RCS and SMS messages that your phone is already receiving. You can then connect Beeper to messaging services like Telegram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Signal, and social platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, and X. Even full chat services like Discord and Slack are supported. The app also syncs with the desktop client, so you can access your messages across all platforms.
I tried the beta version of the app last week and I’ve never been more aware of all the people I’ve comforted.
That’s because all of your related messages are pushed into one inbox—read, unread, or ignored. It’s been a bit of an eye-opener for me as I’ve been sifting through messages I’ve completely missed or forgotten about on platforms I don’t use that often, like LinkedIn and Discord. It’s a real convenience because you don’t have to constantly check individual apps. On Instagram, for example, I don’t turn on my notifications because I don’t care about getting pings about photos I like — but that means I don’t send notifications about DMs. I also don’t have the LinkedIn app, so I don’t get push notifications about messages there either. Beeper basically solves that problem for me.
But sometimes it gets a little chaotic. There are some ways to organize all your messages, but it’s still not enough. For example, you cannot delete or archive chats. Beeper says it’s working on adding this in the future.
For now, you can choose between a “Minimal” or “Pro” interface. The Pro version lets you include app icons for each chat, indicating the services each message comes from, while the Minimal version doesn’t, keeping things a little neater. I also found it useful to pin specific conversations, which puts your most important contacts at the top of the app. Aside from a quick inbox, Beeper isn’t much different from other messaging apps I’ve used, as you can attach images, record voice messages, and create group chats.
Beeper originally launched its all-in-one chat app in 2021, but it was only available via a waiting list. The new Beeper comes with features that the previous version didn’t have, including a refreshed design as well as the ability to connect new messaging platforms from within the mobile app — not just the desktop client. It also adds support for collapsible and native Android features like chat bubbles. Now that it’s been revamped, Beeper wants to end the waiting list and make its messaging app available to everyone.
“Everyone appreciates the speed and polish of the new app,” says Migicovsky The Verge. “Because it’s an open beta test and we have an extremely passionate user base, we’ve received feedback and feature requests.” For now, users can access the beta version of Beeper if they have an existing Beeper account. You can also sign up for a waiting list to get access later.
The beta so far has been “tremendous,” says Migicovsky. As of last Friday, he said, one-third of Beeper’s Android users had already upgraded.
Beeper’s plan holds a lot of promise. It includes things like Android Auto support, scheduled messages, “@” mentions, the ability to see a list of people who have responded to a message, and a feature that lets you archive messages. There are also some experimental features you can try out, including a fully end-to-end encrypted on-device signal bridge and a sticker maker.
Beeper was hoping to score a big victory in the battle against iMessage. Now that he’s forced to rely on his native stride, every bit of the performance counts. It is It’s a little overwhelming to have messages from so many different sources in one place, but I like Beeper so far. And at least this new version of the app cannot be made by any company.