Founder of Pebble promises iMessage on Android and Windows with a universal chat app

Pepper It is a new global chat app that attempts to unify 15 different chat platforms into a single interface. The app is the work of a team that includes Eric Migikowsky, CEO and founder of former smartwatch manufacturer Pebble, who announced its launch on Twitter. Beeper notes that the project was previously known as NovaChat, and it requires a $ 10 / month subscription.

Although Beeper integrates with the world’s most popular messaging services like WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Slack, Twitter, Discord, Instagram and Facebook Messenger, Apple’s iMessage support is perhaps the most interesting. IMessage is only officially available on Apple devices, and users often cite it as something preventing them from switching to Android. Migicovsky says Beeper should allow iMessage to work on Android, Windows and Linux, but he admits it “uses a few tricks” in doing so.

The FAQ on the Beeper website provides a more in-depth explanation of what exactly this trick includes. If you have a Mac always online, you can install the Beeper Mac app as a bridge, similar to The approach used by AirMessage. But things get really wild if you don’t have access to a Mac, at which point Beeper says it will literally send each of its users a “Jailbroken iPhone with the Beeper app installed” in order to act as a bridge. At this point, we should probably mention that using Beeper involves paying a monthly subscription of $ 10, which may or may not include the cost of the iPhone.

Just in case you thought Beeper was joking, in a follow-up tweet, Migicovsky said he currently has 50 old iPhone 4S devices in his office, ready to be recycled for use with Beeper.

If the solution works as Beeper claims, the result should be a universal chat app that works across macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android, offering a unified mailbox and the ability to search through messages from each of the 15 services. It is based on the open source Matrix messaging protocol (Migicovsky Previously described NovaChat’s relationship to Matrix is ​​the same as Gmail’s relationship with email), and although the client app itself is not open source, the bridges connecting it to other chat services are as well.

Oh, and there’s a dark mode coming in the next update of Beeper, of course.

Although the short-term goal is to make it easier to chat with people via various chat apps, Megikovsky ultimately spoke of a possibility Everyone uses the same Matrix To chat with friends and colleagues, instead of simply using it as a bridge between services.

Although Migikovsky says he’s been using Beeper as his default chat client for the past two years, it doesn’t appear to be widely available yet. Instead, Beeper asks potential users to fill out a form on their website to get an invite.

Here is the full list of chat services that Beeper currently supports:

• The WhatsApp
• Facebook Messenger
• iMessage
• Android Messages (SMS)
• cable
• Twitter
• slack
• Hangouts
• Instagram
• Skype
• IRC
• Matrix
• Disagreement
• Signal
• Bieber Network