Finally. Microsoft incorporates iOS into phone link.

[ryan]

8 hours ago, kojack said:

I am moving away from working at bell so I can be with my son full time.

 

 

If I was rich I'd send you a million bucks, you sir are a great person, I wish my parents cared for me

[Aaron44126]

Another cool thing I noticed with Beeper.

Inbound SMS messages with 2FA codes (i.e. that you get when logging into a bank web site) are automatically identified and it copies the code to your clipboard, so you can just paste it into the web site without having to go through any additional steps.  Slick.

[kojack]

4 hours ago, ryan said:

 

 

If I was rich I'd send you a million bucks, you sir are a great person, I wish my parents cared for me

They do.  Maybe have a weird way of showing it.  I thank you for the compliments. We (mrskojack and myself) try our best to give our two sons the best life.  Our other son is 25 and is working on his new business.  He's set up and we only have to provide emotional support to him! 

[kojack]

2 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

Another cool thing I noticed with Beeper.

Inbound SMS messages with 2FA codes (i.e. that you get when logging into a bank web site) are automatically identified and it copies the code to your clipboard, so you can just paste it into the web site without having to go through any additional steps.  Slick.

Just like real imessage. Cool. 

[ryan]

I don't know if I'd switch anything to apple but hey you never know. I had a 9th gen ipad and I loved that thing because of its performance and battery life. but now I have a duet 5 and the battery life is better but yeah the performance is meh. it's almost like you can count on apple giving you a great experience no matter what you buy from them whereas windows/android/chrome is hit or miss and to get an equal or better experience you really have alot of homework and research to do

[Sandy Bridge]

On 3/22/2023 at 7:21 AM, Aaron44126 said:

There seems to be a lot of effort going into this and I have no idea how these guys are making any money, if they aren't charging for the app...

This Beeper sounds pretty interesting.  I miss the days of AIM, texting on a phone just doesn't capture the magic of multi-hour AIM chats with friends at odd hours.  There's GChat and Facebook Chat, but then you're involved with the big advertising enterprises, and for the latter with the never-ending hamster wheel of social media that will likely pull you in.  AIM was more or less perfect.

 

Beeper could be the next-best thing to AIM.

 

So I looked into this because I'm always suspicious of services that look like they're too good to be true.  And they say they have a team of 20, which usually doesn't come free.  One of Beeper's co-founders is the founder of Pebble (the smart watch company), and after that (and a gap year) became a partner at YCombinator, which according to LinkedIn is a position he still has.  So, he's probably minted.  The other co-founder has a long software career at a variety of places and probably doesn't need short-term income either.  Not sure who all else is working there, but it looks like it is likely a situation of, "a bunch of us have been in the industry 15+ years and want to build our dream application, and one of the co-founders is minted and can float those who actually need income in the short term."

 

Which is better than the alternative of, "they're selling your messages to the highest bidder."  They'll still need to figure out if that eventual Premium option is actually going to cover expenses over the long haul though.

 

OpenCore Legacy also looks interesting.  I also have a 2010 Mac Mini that is currently on Sierra (or is it High Sierra?), and did not know it could be updated past High Sierra.  Even if I don't enlist it for Beeper duty, that is good to know about.  For the "broken USB 1.1 support", does that mean you can't plug in 1.1 devices directly?  Apple lists all of its ports as being USB 2.0 ports, rather than 1.1; at first I had thought it meant USB 1.1 ports didn't work but there aren't any.  Not a big deal though, I accidentally bought a USB 2.0 hub a couple years ago when I thought I was buying a USB 3.0 hub so that's an easy work-around.

[Aaron44126]

5 hours ago, Sandy Bridge said:

For the "broken USB 1.1 support", does that mean you can't plug in 1.1 devices directly?  Apple lists all of its ports as being USB 2.0 ports, rather than 1.1; at first I had thought it meant USB 1.1 ports didn't work but there aren't any.  Not a big deal though, I accidentally bought a USB 2.0 hub a couple years ago when I thought I was buying a USB 3.0 hub so that's an easy work-around.

Yes. Apparently, it switches which controller your device gets plugged into internally based on what you connect. So, if you plug a USB1 device in directly, it will go to the USB 1.1 controller which will not work. Going through a USB2 hub is a “hack” to force it to go through the system’s USB 2 controller.

 

I have since connected my Discord and Facebook Messenger accounts to Beeper and those are working fine as well. Having everything in one spot is nice. And I saw on GitHub that they are working on a Google Voice bridge; I use Google Voice as a secondary phone number so it would be nice to have those SMS messages in there too.

[Aaron44126]

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/26/23699102/microsoft-phone-link-imessage-ios-iphone-support-available-now

 

It looks like Microsoft is rolling this out to the "general public" with the full rollout to be completed by mid-May.

 

Meanwhile ...  I'm still quite satisfied with Beeper, and I can report that it also works just as good on Linux, which I have recently switched over to on my "personal" laptop.

[kojack]

2 hours ago, Aaron44126 said:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/26/23699102/microsoft-phone-link-imessage-ios-iphone-support-available-now

 

It looks like Microsoft is rolling this out to the "general public" with the full rollout to be completed by mid-May.

 

Meanwhile ...  I'm still quite satisfied with Beeper, and I can report that it also works just as good on Linux, which I have recently switched over to on my "personal" laptop.

I noticed that today as well.  I finally got unison working decently on my pc's now. I should have beeper up and running soon as I just landed a position with a prominent tech website. I will contact beeper and see if they will push my acceptance up so I can use it right now, and tell the readership about it. I will be using phone link to try as well as soon as I get the update. 

[kojack]

I have the option for the iPhone on Microsoft phone link now, but my phone and PC both hang at connecting via Bluetooth.  Anyone have any options to get this to push past this part?

[kojack]

Got it figured out. Had to forget the devices in Bluetooth settings.  It works great now. 

[ryan]

nice, how did you get it to work? Im trying to link my s21 ultra to windows 11 and no dice just texts. shouldnt i be able to make calls also.

 

one last thing, how do I get dex working wirelessly?

[kojack]

1 hour ago, ryan said:

nice, how did you get it to work? Im trying to link my s21 ultra to windows 11 and no dice just texts. shouldnt i be able to make calls also.

 

one last thing, how do I get dex working wirelessly?

I am not sure on DEX. But for phone link, remove your computer and phone from each other's Bluetooth, turn off both Bluetooth adapters for a min, turn both back on then pair via the phone link app. Worked for me on both systems. 

[kojack]

Been using Phone Link constantly since I have connected it. It works awesome. As I mentioned before, I don't care about transferring files, photos etc as I am full Microsoft on my mobile devices anyways. But, being about to message from my PC's is a great time saver, and it works awesome. My phone is on charge in my office, and my notebook, which I am typing on right now is in our family room and I can message using my phone from here. Wonderful!