TL;DR
- Beeper on Android refreshes the unified chats app from the ground up, focusing on speed. It also aligns the app closer to Android aesthetics.
- Beeper brings together chat apps like WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook Messenger, SMS, RCS, Instagram DMs, and more under one app.
- Beeper on Android is gated behind a waitlist, so you will need to wait or get a referral invite from an existing user.
Update: A previous version of this article erroneously correlated Beeper with a smartphone brand’s efforts to bring iMessage to its phones. The error is deeply regretted, and the article has been corrected.
Beeper is known for bringing iMessage access to Android smartphones through the Beeper Mini app. That love story did not last long, as Apple cracked down hard on iMessage integration within Beeper, dooming the endeavor. But Beeper’s apps aren’t just about iMessage, as they focus on being a universal inbox for all your top chat apps. The Beeper app has received a significant update with a ground-up rebuild, making it slicker at aggregating all your chatting apps under one roof.
As Beeper proclaims in its blog, the new Beeper on Android app is a complete rewrite. There is still a waitlist involved, so you will have to wait until you are accepted or get an invite from someone already on Beeper. The team also notes that the app will move to a paid subscription model in the “very near future,” so take note of that before committing yourself.
The highlight of this new Beeper on Android app is that it is fast as it caches all chats locally, allowing instant chats and full message searches. You can choose from two view densities and themes, use Android’s bubbles and home screen widget, and even support a dual-pane view for foldables.
As a recap of what Beeper does, it brings the following into one app:
- Android SMS and RCS
- Telegram
- Signal
- Facebook Messenger
- Instagram DM
- Twitter DM
- Slack
- Discord
- Google Chat
- IRC
- Matrix chat
Beeper notes that the first sync may take up to eight minutes for large accounts, which isn’t bad when you think about it. There are some more known issues, like how tapping on a message in search results does not open the chat. However, the list for the first public release appears to be small.
Beeper also addresses the elephant in the room. On-device iMessage bridge is present in the list of upcoming features, but it is not enabled now. If you rely on iMessage, you have to continue using Beeper Mini alongside.
The service is also working on other features, such as deleting chats, network disconnection alerts, scheduled send, mentions, on-device end-to-end encrypted bridges for WhatsApp and Google Messages, and more.
Have you tried out the new app refresh? Let us know in the comments below!
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