The biggest complaint that I and most other iPhone users have when trying to switch to Android is.... what about iMessage?
Well, today is a GREAT day. Because for the last few months I have been secretly messaging my iPhone friends, not from my iPhone - but from my Android phone!
And it is SO good, that it's finally about time I made a post about it.
INTRO
If you're new here then hi my name is Pete, and on this website, we help people find the best tech, be productive and stay safe online.
SO HOW DOES IT WORK?
As you may well be aware, I have an ongoing series of posts where I try my best to switch from an iPhone to a different Android phone each time, and each time I try a new phone, it gets easier. It's getting easier in part because of one app - and that is Beeper.
Beeper is the FIRST app I've come across that not only lets you use iMessage on Android, but also centralises all of the chats I get across all of my social accounts into one place.
Facebook Messages, Twitter, Instagram, Slack, WhatsApp, Signal, Discord, LinkedIn, Android SMS, Google Hangouts, Telegram, and more! All in one single place.
Simply connect your accounts and you have a really simple client that brings them all together.
The downside that I've found, is now you have one giant chat client to hold everything, well, that gets very busy.
BUT, it does save you logging in to each social media platform to check your messages constantly.
If you're someone like me and you're trying to maybe cut down on your social media usage a little, using Beeper means you can actually delete the social media apps from your phone but not miss any direct messages. It's really neat.
For those of you who just want iMessage on android, you do need a Mac to make this work, but you can pick a mac mini up really cheap on eBay nowadays, otherwise, it's a simple case of completing the integration wizard, and that's literally it. Just pick up your android phone and send imessages.
Actually, there is one more thing to add here, I found that going into your iMessage settings and setting your primary iMessage account as an email address rather than your phone number really helps. Because if you pop your sim into an Android phone and then people try to iMessage you it sometimes didn't work, however, changing that email setting - was all good.
This is still in the early stages and there are some improvements that I'd like to see.
One - Because you have so many chat networks all in one place, it does get very busy. On the desktop client, you can click into each chat network separately to just view those conversations but I think having coloured icons would actually make them easier to distinguish.
That's also something I'd like to see come to the mobile apps because currently you can't filter down to each chat network and have to scroll or search until you find the right conversation.
Two - I'd love the ability to customise notifications based on which chat network it's coming from. You do have the ability to mute conversations so you don't get notified of those and you can favourite chats so they stick to the top, but it's not the same as saying, I don't want any Facebook messenger notifications.
Thirdly, at the moment the chat networks are limited as to their features. The biggest one I've had is that you can't start NEW conversations from Beeper. You have to either scroll back and find an old conversation then continue that, or open up the actual messaging app - start the chat there, and then you can pick it up from Beeper. This one sounds like a pain in the backside, but actually, I can only think of I think one time where I had to go into one of the apps, I think it might have been iMessage, to send a new message, so that I could then carry that conversation on within beeper.
With that said, these are all minor issues given the huge benefit I've seen from having everything in one place.
Beeper IS a paid-for app, it's $10 per month, and you can sign up at beeper.com where you basically register your interest, and they'll contact you when they're ready to onboard you. There was a waiting list when I signed up many months ago, though I'm not sure how long the wait is today, so best get yourself registered even if you're not sure about paying for it. Just register and then when the opportunity to actually become a paying customer comes up, you can decide.
When you do get onboarded, well in itself was a really fun experience.
You literally hop on a video call with Eric who is the co-founder of Beeper, and also founded the Pebble smartwatch, and he and his team will guide you through everything you need to get set up. You won't leave that call unless a) you want to, or b) you have all of your integrations set up and working.
So that is how you can send iMessages from Android and actually even on Linux and Windows as they have beeper clients for those platforms too, and that is how you can centralise all of your messages into one single app.
I've personally found it really useful, I hope you do as well.
🎥 Lifelong iPhone user Switches to the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 3: https://youtu.be/CzVG_l2I6v8
🎥 Tech Reviews: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0145...
