I have been using Beeper for 6 months or so now. In the start it had some bugs, but now they are more and more rare (I don't use iMessages).
Overall an amazing product, with what seems like a very active and product team behind which constants pushes out new updates.
Highly recommended 10/10!
Just don't be too critical, or exasperated...
They'll quickly categorise it as rude/disrespectful.
Ignore any & all contribution, refund, & then bump you in an instant.
And they'll do all this in a ham-fisted & egotistical/condescending way.
My experience of their culture, is it doesn't bode well LT.
I have an older Mac dedicated to this singular purpose. It works well. That bridge + SmsMatrix on my android phone means I can get my text messages & iMessages from my (all iPhone family) anywhere I can load the Riot web app.
Note that it's kind of an interesting hack: IIRC It's just talking to the local sqlite data store that the Mac is receiving messages to. I worry that apple may one day say "Nope" and shut down this "API" we were never supposed to have.
I've been self hosting it all long before I knew it had a commercial front (Beeper), the docs are fine. That's from the POV of someone who was already running a Matrix server, though.
That option exists today. The iMessage bridge needs to run on a Mac, for obvious reasons, but not only can you self-host it, but you can plug your self-hosted bridge into the public homeserver/client entirely through their settings panel.
When they originally had you do setup for Beeper, they would record the process, and not inform you that they were going to do that until the meeting was already open.
Beeper is made by the same guy who made Pebble watch and then sold the whole kit-n-caboodle (minus developer jobs) to Fitbit when business tanked.
I have have sent several emails asking Eric Migicovsky what guarantees he has that the privacy policy will continue to stay the same if Beeper becomes unprofitable and is sold to another company. He doesn't think an answer to this question is deserved, as he has not responded to any emails. In the meantime, he has continued to send me advertising emails reminding me I'm no longer on a waiting list, but apparently doesn't think questions from customers are worth answering.
What's the point in trusting your data to a company whose privacy policy can change if they sell it to the highest bidder and one of the co-founders has a history of just that? Especially one that has no intention of telling you that they're going to record the entire process of on-boarding you until you're entering the meeting.
I'm gonna stick with Pidgin and Matrix, especially since you can spin up your own Matrix server with the same bridges that Beeper uses, and then the only person you need to give your iCloud password is you, and not some stranger who refuses to answer valid privacy policy questions.
Overall an amazing product, with what seems like a very active and product team behind which constants pushes out new updates. Highly recommended 10/10!