Get the latest tech news

The owner of WordPress has bought Beeper, the app that flipped the bird to Apple’s iMessage supremacy

WordPress and Tumblr owner Automattic has bought Beeper, the maker of the Beeper Mini app that challenged Apple’s iMessage dominion late last year. Although it ultimately lost that battle, the incident gave the DOJ more ammunition in its antitrust suit against the iPhone maker.

You may also remember Migicovsky as the creator of the Pebble smartwatch, the charmingly simple pre-Apple Watch device that helped kickstart mainstream interest in wearable tech in the early 2010s. Although the bubbles will remain green between iPhone and Android users, RCS chats replicate much of the iMessage appeal with a similar feature set, including end-to-end encryption. Automattic’s interim chief executive, Toni Schneider, told The NYT that he sees the regulatory tradewinds blowing in a more open direction that will favor cross-platform, universal messaging apps like Beeper.

Get the Android app