Tag: imessage

Max’s SharePlay feature for iOS is now available to all ad-free subscribers

Posted on by faz_business


Back when Max was still known as HBO Max, it released a redesigned app that added SharePlay for Apple devices, but only in the US. Now, the streaming service is rolling out the feature to all its users around the world. SharePlay is now available to all Max users paying for Ad-Free and Ultimate Ad-Free plans, allowing them to hold and join watch parties over FaceTime and iMessage, no matter where they are.

Users can start watching with friends by hitting the “share” button either on the details section of each title or within the FaceTime app. Each session can have as many as 32 participants, but they all have to be Max subscribers. That means people from regions where Max isn’t available, such as in Asian countries, won’t be able to hop on and watch with their pals in the US or Europe. Warner Bros. is planning to expand Max’s reach to South East Asia later this year, but it warns on its website that the timeline could still change.

SharePlay for Max works on iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs and Vision Pro headsets. To initiate a watch party on iPhones, iPads and Vision Pros, users have to find the Share icon on the details page of a show or a movie, enter the contacts they want to share with and initiate a FaceTime call. If they choose Messages on their mobile devices, their friends will get a message asking them to join SharePlay. On Apple TV, users will have to open FaceTime first before clicking the SharePlay button and choosing Max from the app list.

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

Posted on by faz_business


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 (after, oh, about three days), the incident gave the DOJ more ammunition in its antitrust suit against the iPhone maker. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Automattic paid $125 million, a surprisingly hefty price for the startup.

Automattic already has an app called Texts that taps into the APIs of various chat services for a universal messaging experience. Beeper has essentially the same mission and branding, and the two competitors will now merge their teams under Beeper CEO Eric Migicovsky, who will join Automattic.

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. On Tuesday, he told The New York Times that Beeper and Texts will launch a combined service later this year. The two teams will reportedly begin work in two weeks during a meeting in Portugal.

On Tuesday, Migicovsky wrote in a blog post that the two companies go way back. “Matt [Mullenweg], Automattic’s CEO, and I have known each other for years,” he wrote. “He was an early user, supporter and investor in Beeper. We’re very well aligned on our goal (build the best chat app on earth), approach (open source where possible), and independence (Beeper will operate independently as part of Automattic’s Other Bets division).”

Automattic’s buying price is a bit of a head-scratcher, considering Beeper Mini’s claim to fame — iMessage integration on Android — was squashed after only a few days in the spotlight. Beeper framed the brief showdown as a fight for open, secure messaging standards. (It also helped the startup make more of a name for itself.) Apple saw it as a threat to one of its walled garden’s main attractions: the iPhone-to-iPhone chats’ blue bubbles with features like reactions and higher-resolution image and video-sharing.

Another reason to question Automattic’s acquisition price is Apple’s plan to bring RCS (rich communication services) support to iPhones later this year. 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. Still, from my understanding, tapping into other services’ APIs is something the right coders could easily duplicate (including the Texts team Automattic already owned). Perhaps the real main attraction was the brand Beeper built for itself in taking on Apple.