PieMessage: iMessage on Android (opens in new tab)

(github.com)

83 pointsmikeflynn10y ago31 comments

31 comments

31 comments · 10 top-level

Analemma_10y ago· 6 in thread

You should probably brace yourself for a C&D and/or DMCA takedown request from Apple, regardless of the actual legality of what you're doing. They won't like this.

conradev10y ago

I went through Apple's DMCA requests sent to Github and the only one that is remotely similar is this:

https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-11-04-Apple....

But even then they weren't claiming it was reverse engineered material, but instead material ripped directly from Apple's copyrighted and confidential docs. I think both Apple and Github understand the boundaries of the DMCA pretty well. According to Github they haven't attempted to take down any of the following:

https://github.com/nygard/class-dump

https://github.com/nst/iOS-Runtime-Headers

https://github.com/brutella/hc

https://github.com/KhaosT/HAP-NodeJS

https://github.com/nfarina/homebridge

https://github.com/lisimia/piMessage

https://github.com/stefanesser/dumpdecrypted

https://github.com/comex/imaon2

… etc

toxik10y ago

It is relieving to see that this information is available to the general public. Chilling effects and whatnot.

mdorazio10y ago

Yes, I remember having seen something very similar before several years ago that was promptly forced to shut down by Apple. I believe this was it:

http://techland.time.com/2013/09/24/an-imessage-app-is-now-a...

landr0id10y ago

piemessage proxies through your own Mac though -- not some sketchy server in China. I'd imagine Apple shut down the one you linked to protect their users.

matthewmacleod10y ago

that was promptly forced to shut down by Apple

I think we'd need a citation for that – AFAIK that app was pulled because of honking great security problems.

Angostura10y ago

Unless it starts cocking up Apple's own systems - overloading servers, or generating significant numbers of support queries, for example I doubt they will have any problem at all

camhenlin10y ago· 4 in thread

Cool! Very nice project. I wrote some similar iMessage related clients here:

https://github.com/CamHenlin/imessageclient - this is a terminal based one that works over ssh

https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageWebClient - this is a web based client that I used to do iMessages on a windows phone for quite a while

And I have some more iMessage related projects on my GitHub as well. Hopefully these projects give you or others some more ideas for iMessage related stuff

superdaniel10y ago

I'm guessing the imessageclient project doesn't work on El Capitan yet? How does your iMessageModule[0] get around it?

[0] https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageModule

camhenlin10y ago

I had someone tell me that they were able to get it working on El Capitan by disabling some security settings, but I've resorted to running services (https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageBot specifically) on a VM with a genuine Apple device SN running Yosemite, and that works very nicely.

gruez10y ago

both links are 404.

camhenlin10y ago

Fixed thanks!

wmichelin10y ago· 3 in thread

How well does this work?

collias10y ago

Doesn't look like it works very well. It requires a device running OSX to proxy the iMessage stuff through, and apparently the OSX client itself is unreliable.

toxik10y ago

I wouldn't call the OS X Messages app unreliable -- it does what it says on the box. That said, I'm not sure it's a good fit for the method used in this project.

raddad10y ago

Bottom of the page it reads:

>Since I've moved onto other projects and haven't had time to finish this,

Gaelan10y ago· 2 in thread

Just out of curiosity, why has nobody reverse-engineered iMessage to create an open-source client? I presume it is quite hard (the seems like an obvious thing to attempt, iMessage has been available on the Mac where things like disassembly should be pretty easy for years); where does this challenge come from?

zachlatta10y ago

IIRC, Apple issues unique keys to every iOS/OS X device they produce. This key is used to subscribe to APNS (which iMessage uses for data transfer).

Without the key, you can't do much of anything.

rahimnathwani10y ago

It appears you can generate a key, and that Apple doesn't check whether the key corresponds to a piece of hardware they've sold:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/2wohwn/getting_...

suchitpuri10y ago· 2 in thread

There are so many players in the market for chat, the only goo reason for someone using imessage on android will be to chat with people on iphone's and mac.

treve10y ago

In fact, this is probably the only reason, but a pretty significant one.

soylentcola10y ago

It's the reason my friends and I all use Hangouts. Basically there are plenty of IM/chat options but Hangouts is the default app on about half of our phones (those who use Android). The ones who use iOS can still install Hangouts and we can all use it in our Gmail browser tabs at work.

It could've easily gone the other way. I definitely favor Android in daily use but if there was an official iMessage client for Android I'd have been fine installing that and letting the iOS users run their default.

But since Apple never did open that up we default to Hangouts. We could run some other app instead but at least this way some of us don't need to install "yet another IM client".

herman510y ago· 2 in thread

This is great - I switched from iOS to Android last week, and my biggest annoyance was the lack of iMessage

skrowl10y ago

I've heard the same from a lot of buddies that have upgraded to Android in the last few years. What is it about iMessage that you miss?

For group messaging, are all of your friends still using iMessage instead of cross platform things like Telegram, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Discord, etc? If so, why?

Worst case of course, all of your iMessage contacts can be contacted over plain old SMS (Via Messenger, Hangouts, or any of the hundreds of Android SMS clients).

Now that the era of Apple being "cool" is officially over and we'll see more and more people moving to Android, I think the appeal of the iMessage "hey you can talk to anyone you want as long as they're on an iPhone or a Mac!" walled garden will collapse.

jonknee10y ago

> For group messaging, are all of your friends still using iMessage instead of cross platform things like Telegram, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Discord, etc? If so, why?

It's not surprising that people use what comes on their phone and computer by default.

finnn10y ago· 1 in thread

Lots of .class files, the author should check out .gitignore files and avoid committing binary files.

cgsmith10y ago

Perhaps open a ticket or PR to address this?

malka10y ago· 1 in thread

would be interesting if there was no need for an OSX device.

discordance10y ago

Or perhaps it could be a cloud service where a VM running OSX is spun up per user to route messages?

quaz3l10y ago

I've always wanted to implement this process (sending to mac, and through imessage) into the core sms sending service of android. Have the service check the number, if it is on imessage use that, otherwise do sms. Would this be feasible? Ignoring the reliability of the system.

bboyairwreck10y ago

Hey guys! Eric, developer of PieMessage here. Happy to answer any questions you gifts have :)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

31 comments

31 comments · 10 top-level

Analemma_10y ago· 6 in thread

You should probably brace yourself for a C&D and/or DMCA takedown request from Apple, regardless of the actual legality of what you're doing. They won't like this.

conradev10y ago

I went through Apple's DMCA requests sent to Github and the only one that is remotely similar is this:

https://github.com/github/dmca/blob/master/2014-11-04-Apple....

https://github.com/nygard/class-dump

https://github.com/nst/iOS-Runtime-Headers

https://github.com/brutella/hc

https://github.com/KhaosT/HAP-NodeJS

https://github.com/nfarina/homebridge

https://github.com/lisimia/piMessage

https://github.com/stefanesser/dumpdecrypted

https://github.com/comex/imaon2

… etc

toxik10y ago

It is relieving to see that this information is available to the general public. Chilling effects and whatnot.

mdorazio10y ago

Yes, I remember having seen something very similar before several years ago that was promptly forced to shut down by Apple. I believe this was it:

http://techland.time.com/2013/09/24/an-imessage-app-is-now-a...

landr0id10y ago

piemessage proxies through your own Mac though -- not some sketchy server in China. I'd imagine Apple shut down the one you linked to protect their users.

matthewmacleod10y ago

that was promptly forced to shut down by Apple

I think we'd need a citation for that – AFAIK that app was pulled because of honking great security problems.

Angostura10y ago

Unless it starts cocking up Apple's own systems - overloading servers, or generating significant numbers of support queries, for example I doubt they will have any problem at all

camhenlin10y ago· 4 in thread

Cool! Very nice project. I wrote some similar iMessage related clients here:

https://github.com/CamHenlin/imessageclient - this is a terminal based one that works over ssh

https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageWebClient - this is a web based client that I used to do iMessages on a windows phone for quite a while

And I have some more iMessage related projects on my GitHub as well. Hopefully these projects give you or others some more ideas for iMessage related stuff

superdaniel10y ago

I'm guessing the imessageclient project doesn't work on El Capitan yet? How does your iMessageModule[0] get around it?

[0] https://github.com/CamHenlin/iMessageModule

camhenlin10y ago

gruez10y ago

both links are 404.

camhenlin10y ago

Fixed thanks!

wmichelin10y ago· 3 in thread

How well does this work?

collias10y ago

Doesn't look like it works very well. It requires a device running OSX to proxy the iMessage stuff through, and apparently the OSX client itself is unreliable.

toxik10y ago

I wouldn't call the OS X Messages app unreliable -- it does what it says on the box. That said, I'm not sure it's a good fit for the method used in this project.

raddad10y ago

Bottom of the page it reads:

>Since I've moved onto other projects and haven't had time to finish this,

Gaelan10y ago· 2 in thread

zachlatta10y ago

IIRC, Apple issues unique keys to every iOS/OS X device they produce. This key is used to subscribe to APNS (which iMessage uses for data transfer).

Without the key, you can't do much of anything.

rahimnathwani10y ago

It appears you can generate a key, and that Apple doesn't check whether the key corresponds to a piece of hardware they've sold:

https://www.reddit.com/r/hackintosh/comments/2wohwn/getting_...

suchitpuri10y ago· 2 in thread

There are so many players in the market for chat, the only goo reason for someone using imessage on android will be to chat with people on iphone's and mac.

treve10y ago

In fact, this is probably the only reason, but a pretty significant one.

soylentcola10y ago

But since Apple never did open that up we default to Hangouts. We could run some other app instead but at least this way some of us don't need to install "yet another IM client".

herman510y ago· 2 in thread

This is great - I switched from iOS to Android last week, and my biggest annoyance was the lack of iMessage

skrowl10y ago

I've heard the same from a lot of buddies that have upgraded to Android in the last few years. What is it about iMessage that you miss?

For group messaging, are all of your friends still using iMessage instead of cross platform things like Telegram, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Discord, etc? If so, why?

Worst case of course, all of your iMessage contacts can be contacted over plain old SMS (Via Messenger, Hangouts, or any of the hundreds of Android SMS clients).

jonknee10y ago

> For group messaging, are all of your friends still using iMessage instead of cross platform things like Telegram, WhatsApp, Hangouts, Discord, etc? If so, why?

It's not surprising that people use what comes on their phone and computer by default.

finnn10y ago· 1 in thread

Lots of .class files, the author should check out .gitignore files and avoid committing binary files.

cgsmith10y ago

Perhaps open a ticket or PR to address this?

malka10y ago· 1 in thread

would be interesting if there was no need for an OSX device.

discordance10y ago

Or perhaps it could be a cloud service where a VM running OSX is spun up per user to route messages?

quaz3l10y ago

bboyairwreck10y ago

Hey guys! Eric, developer of PieMessage here. Happy to answer any questions you gifts have :)

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse