Product of my errors. Currently: @Pebble Previously: @Beeper @YCombinator @Pebble
Palo Alto, CA
- Tweets 8,398
- Following 1,593
- Followers 40,706
- Likes 8,126
just got my light phone 3 - the build quality is insane. it's feels like a brick and I love it.
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Oh, sorta like how Apple reverse engineered Microsoft Office file formats to support them in iWork, without Microsoft permission? eff.org/deeplinks/2019/06/ad…
Relentlessly hacking Apple while everyone cheers them on.
Cringe.
Community note
According to Section 103 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 1201), a person in legal possession of a program may reverse-engineer and circumvent its protection if that is necessary to achieve "interoperability".
law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17
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Today is the 10 year anniversary of the @Pebble Kickstarter launch. I had enough foresight at the time to take a photo of the exact moment when everything in my life changed:
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Apple hates iOS app developers. They were dumb enough to write it out clearly in slack. They go out of their way to make your life worse.
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Damn this is cool. Someone made a Android mainboard replacement for the Q20. It fits perfectly inside the existing phone. Uses the same display but upgrades the camera and switches to USB C. It feels so good to hold blackberry again. The soft touch back feels amazing
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New app alert: I've been working on Beeper for a while and today we're launching! It's a single app to chat on iMessage, WhatsApp, and 13 other networks. Been using it as my default chat client for the last 2 years and there is NO going back. Check it out beeperhq.com
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Amazon is now a showroom for AliExpress. Buy some pairs on Amazon to try on, fine best style, return, order in ali for 1/4 price.
Full circle. Wasn't Amazon the show room for bricks and mortar? Wonder what's next in the cycle...
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I don't want iMessage. I want to be able to securely communicate with iPhone friends through their default chat app.
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We're really proud to show off the final design for @Pebble Time 2*! It's quite a bit sleeker and imo more awesome looking than the original design for Core Time 2 we showed off in March. I hope you like it!
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Pebble is officially back on iOS and Android! Download it now, works with all old and new Pebbles.
Incredible that everything's still working just as well as before. Can you say that about any other tech product you bought 13 years ago??
rePebble.com/app
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I’m excited to introduce a little side project I’ve been working on: Beepberry - a portable e-paper computer for hackers, designed for chatting on Beeper. It’s available today to pre-order for $79. It’s a partnership between me (@onbeeper) and @sqfmi: beepberry.sqfmi.com
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I guess this is what could happen when you have a maniacal focus on quality, craft and design
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Finally have my first Core 2 Duo sealed up, running open source PebbleOS. Now with a functioning RTC driver so it actually tells time!
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For 3 blissful days this week, iPhone and Android users enjoyed high quality encrypted chats. We're working hard to return to that state.
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Proud to share our new app: Beeper Mini - iMessage client for Android
- Runs locally on your phone (no cloud server in the middle)
- Fully end-to-end encrypted
- New design
Download it now!
play.google.com/store/apps/d…
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After 4 years at YC, I'm totally jealous of all these founders building amazing startups. Time to give in to the urge and join the fun! I'm now working 24/7 on Beeper.com. The idea is simple: messaging today is painfully fragmented. We're going to fix that.
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Beeper Cloud and Mini are apps that need to exist. We have built it. We will keep it working. We will share it widely.
This attitude surprises me, especially from people in the tech world. Why do hard things at all? Why keep working on anything that doesn't work the first time?
This seems like an endless cat and mouse game. Isn’t Apple always going to win? Is this a safe business model?
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Beeper and Pebble APKs installed. I have an amazing small android phone now. Thank you @thelightphone and @MarcelD505
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Just received the first batch of complete Core 2 Duos! We're still working on finishing drivers for all peripherals in PebbleOS. But it's wonderful to see it working, connected to my phone over Bluetooth, downloading watchfaces, etc!
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Calling all @startupschool participants - pitch me your one or two-sentence description of what your company does and I will give you feedback! Just reply to this tweet
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Right now, Apple makes it really easy to send unsecure, unencrypted message from iPhones to Androids. Keep that in mind. For iPhone customers, Beeper Mini is a huge boost to security and privacy. iPhone customers have an incentive to encourage their Android friends to use Beeper.
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This transparent Beepy (né Beepberry) case is beautiful! Running a custom buildroot OS that boots in a few seconds! Next step is getting gomuks (Beeper client) up and running.
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The reality distortion field is soooo strong with apple fanbois.
I had dinner with family in Indiana last night. All have iPhones. Each one had a story of annoyance about crappy low resolution videos, broken group chats, etc when chatting with Android friends. No one had Whatsapp installed on their phones or even though to consider an alternative app. Defaults matter. They are powerful.
That's the ground truth. Apple cystomers get a shitty experience because of apple's decisions. Anyone who dismisses truth is not worth listening to.
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This is not about forcing Apple to make an iMessage app for Android. This is about making the default chat experience between Android and iPhone customers more secure, with better features. Defaults are powerful. On iOS, Apple makes it impossible to change default chat app.
Right now, Apple makes it really easy to send unsecure, unencrypted message from iPhones to Androids. Keep that in mind. For iPhone customers, Beeper Mini is a huge boost to security and privacy. iPhone customers have an incentive to encourage their Android friends to use Beeper.
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I want a small Android 🤖 phone, but it appears that no manufacturer has the guts to make one.
The only way we can change this is if we work together. I wrote a manifesto/ode to small phones. If you want a small Android phone too, please check it out! smallandroidphone.com
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A lot of my friends ask 'is that the new watch?' I say yeah, but technically it looks the same as the old watch!
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Got the first bigger batch of Core 2 Duos in the mail! 150 more next week. Also switched to testing a black C2D...still prefer the white though
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Quick @pebble project update! I'm also working on a longer blog post with lots more details, updated images of Core Time 2, etc. And I will hopefully pair that with a Tick Talk epp!
I have not sent out any Core 2 Duo order/address confirmation emails yet, so don't worry - you haven't missed anything. I will post here and on ericmigi.com when we start sending those out. Please do not email me (yet) to ask what your order status is 😉
Tariff cost for US orders is ~$10 per Core 2 Duo. Non-US orders do not have any US tariffs since we ship direct from Hong Kong to rest of world, but since we are shipping 'prepaid' (DDP) you will be charged your country's Taxes/VAT during order confirmation.
Core 2 Duo:
- we solved last major circuit board issue last week (got the audio codec chip + speaker to work), clearing way for mass production
- testing fulfillment system this week with first shipments to beta testers!
- on track to ship the first 2-4k units (roughly half of batch 1) out during last week of July or first week of August. The remainder will ship out by end of Aug. But as it says on store.rePebble.com, this is an estimate - delays may happen
PebbleOS
- things are going quite well
- we're currently focused on Bluetooth reliability, fixed some major bugs this week with the help of @codecoup_pl (thank you!). Things are fairly stable now (🤞)
- battery life is still unoptimized in PebbleOS, but we've verified that the hardware can hit 30+ days.
- major things that we haven't started working on yet: health (step/sleep) tracking, speaker API, magnetometer/barometer,
iOS/Android Mobile app
- we published a new batteries-included open source library for building Pebble companion apps called libpebble3 github.com/coredevices/libpe…
- our new mobile app (built with this library) is currently being beta tested by some willing and brave souls
- good news! Our new mobile app will support your old Pebbles as well. No more sideloading the 10 year old Pebble app!
- our new mobile app will be published on Google Play (play.google.com/store/apps/d…) and iOS Appstore before your watch ships out
- everything is working well, except we haven't started on weather, voice input (soon), health tracking UI, timeline pins from 3rd party apps, Pebblekit Android (soon)/iOS(much later if ever).
SDK
We made it's suuuuuper easy to install the Pebble SDK and build a watchface/app:
1) install uv (docs.astral.sh/uv/)
2) uv tool install pebble-tool
3) pebble new-project my1stapp
4) cd my1stapp && pebble build
5) pebble install --emulator aplite
That's it! Full guides here: developer.rebble.io/develope…
Core Time 2
- progressing well, we're on schedule
- currently in engineering verification test (EVT) stage, testing the first circuit boards and fully assembled watches
- we've made some improvements to the design (it's a bit sleeker), excited to share it soon!
T-shirts
I ordered 500 of the classic Meet Pebble purple tees 👕
It's cloudy today but I'm still enjoying one of my fav watchfaces - Weatherland by @johnreno! apps.rebble.io/en_US/applica…
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My 5yo asked if I could change this to a different animal. He clearly doesn't understand Art.
cc @NyanCat
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I'm back! 10 years after my first @ycombinator demo day I went back on stage today to pitch @onbeeper. We're still in the early days of the company and working to deliver the basics and fix bugs, but man...it does feel exhilarating to talk about the whole plan!
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I understand how ridiculously annoying this uncertainty is for our users. I won't feel bad if you duck out for now. We'll let you know when things are back up and running.
@TimSweeneyEpic and Epic won this week against Big Tech. We have a chance. We're not giving up.
Apple appears to be deliberately blocking iMessages from being delivered to ~5% of Beeper Mini users. Uninstalling and reinstalling Beeper Mini fixes the issue.
We won't have a fix tonight, but we're working on it.
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Congrats on the launch @arturo182! this looks awesome
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Thank you Senator Warren for coming out in support of Beeper!
Green bubble texts are less secure. So why would Apple block a new app allowing Android users to chat with iPhone users on iMessage? Big Tech executives are protecting profits by squashing competitors.
Chatting between different platforms should be easy and secure.
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The blessing and curse of buying fresh Lilygo devices - super affordable and cool hardware... basically nonexistent software.
Does anyone want to port PebbleOS to ESP32-S3? I'll fund development and send you my brand new T-Deck Pro 😃
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Forgotten how beautiful this one is. I have the unreleased ‘heavy metal’ band which feels chunky and amazing.
Still pairs and works great! 2014 tech going strong in 2023. How many other gadgets can say you say that about? (I have to side load the iOS app once a year…stupid 🍎)
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A beautiful new @Pebble watch face from Yuri Galanter. Bars fill up as the day/week/year/century progress!
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Today, the US DOJ sued Apple for illegally creating a walled garden that traps users in the Apple ecosystem and stifles innovation of new apps/accessories. This is relevant to everyone in the US. It's a big deal.
Full complaint: storage.courtlistener.com/re…
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Thank you Senator Klobuchar for inviting us to testify for the Senate Judiciary subcommittee, and for your support on this issue. Let's get the AICO brought to vote!
Beeper testified at a hearing I held on the impact of monopoly power on innovation, and now we are seeing that impact in real time. Apple is blocking their app that increases choice and convenience. We must pass my bipartisan legislation to stop this anticompetitive abuse.
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Ukama just launched today. They are making a $600 open source LTE tower. It is a full network-in-a-box with all the hw/sw you need to run your own LTE network. Spectrum: CBRS (free, supports iPhones/Android). Download eSIM on phone. It's magic ⬇️ ⬇️ crowdsupply.com/ukama/ukama
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first new watches are in the wild :)
I can't remember the last time I was legitimately giddy to receive something in the mail
From the first @Kickstarter in 2012 to now, the new @Pebble Alpha, have been a supporter for over a decade now
damn i'm old
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Mindblowingly cool breakthrough - we made it so all existing Pebble watchfaces/apps now automatically scale up to fill larger and higher resolution Pebble Time 2 display!
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Starting 7 days of old @pebble t-shirts. A ton of us are cyclists...we never made a bib or jersey though. Should we make one this time?
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Why? Because even 8 years later, you still can’t beat a Pebble. I wrote in more detail on my blog ericmigi.com/blog/why-were-b…
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Aspiring consumer HW makers (big and small) - this may sound obvious, but my rec is to underpromise/overdeliver for your first version. It's hard because you want to balance sharing the vision for what the product category will become, but get customers adjusted to the reality that you need to ship what's most likely an MVP for your first version.
Here's a snapshot in time - the first Verge review (by @reckless) of our Kickstarter-version OG Pebble - theverge.com/2013/1/28/39249…
We struggled A LOT with this at Pebble. We were super embarrassed with bugs/annoyances of v1 (any Pebblers remember 'the finger dance'??). One trick we used was to overcompensate a failure in one domain with something awesome in another. Eg v1 Pebble had a terrible hw defect that affected ~10% of all watches affectionately named 'screen tearing' by users. We sent users a free replacement unit if they reported this to us - no RMA needed. Yes, it was abused by some scammers but it helped earn back trust from early users who ran into this.
We also constantly communicated with our early users, through our KS blog: kickstarter.com/projects/597…
Honestly, I'm still figuring this out for Beeper as well. We have now 'exited' beta 3 times 😂
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Starting a thread to record random notes from my Pebble manufacturing trip to Shenzhen
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But in the end, Pebble failed. A few years ago I wrote but never published a blog post about why I think we failed. I decided to finally publish it now for your reading pleasure - medium.com/@ericmigi/why-peb…
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New Pebble 2 Duos are arriving and the subreddit keeps asking to compare them to old Pebble 2...
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Thanks @CBSMornings and @jolingkent for visiting Beeper worldwide HQ (my garage) and getting the full story about Beeper Mini. Fantastic summary of the app and ongoing battle with Apple
Beeper Mini, a new app, lets Android users send blue messages to iPhones — instead of green ones.
But Apple isn't happy about how the app was made, admitting it tried to shut it down. @jolingkent reports that a group of lawmakers has asked the Justice Department to look into it.
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like the beepy? beepy.sqfmi.com :)
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The first 400 finished production Pebble 2 Duos were packaged up today! Their next stop in a few days is our fulfillment center and then shipped to you! Full update on the blog: ericmigi.com/blog/pebble-2-d…
Thank you very much to our manufacturing partners at @seeedstudio and Foxconn!
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Heading back to Shenzhen - final (🤞) trip for Pebble 2 Duo. Still working on waterproof testing, hopefully close to the finish line.
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haha 'we paid these youtubers to post videos about our new product. the experts have spoken!!!'
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This is a big deal. Code in Javascript for @Pebble Try it now, send us feedback @pebbledev developer.pebble.com/blog/20…
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Good news, everyone! We've released a beta version of the new Pebble app for iOS and Android. It works with ALL old Pebble watches!
See what's working so far: ndocs.repebble.com/changelog
Pls report bugs - button in app!
iOS testflight.apple.com/join/T1…
Android play.google.com/apps/testing…
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Thank you @morristimmtc for updating your @Pebble app to emery platform so I can test it on a real live PT2 :) If you have any emery PBWs, post the pbw or link to appstore here and I will try them out (probably tomorrow)
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All @pebble users! Really important that you create a Rebble account (link below) before June 30! This will back up your settings etc. Share this!
I have a Rebble update for you! It’s time for you to create your accounts. Full details over here: rebble.io/2018/06/13/get-rea…
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Very strong signal from bipartisan legislators in the House and Senate. Lots more to come this week.
Senator @amyklobuchar + @SenMikeLee + @RepJerryNadler @RepKenBuck sent this to DOJ regarding ongoing fight betwn Beeper Mini vs Apple “to investigate whether this potentially anticompetitive conduct by Apple violated antitrust laws.” I’ll have the full story on @CBSMornings tmrw
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*FTC has entered the chat* ftc.gov/policy/advocacy-rese…
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This and lots more in the new Pebble news update today on the blog! ericmigi.com/blog/re-introdu…
- Production Updates
- (re)Introducing the Pebble Appstore
- Partnered with Rebble
- New and improved appstore
- (re)Start building apps/faces
- Mobile app sneak peek
(re)Introducing the Pebble Appstore! It’s up and running with all your favourite watchfaces and apps.
We even built some new features like link previews when you share and similar apps. Check it out apps.repebble.com
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Thank you, Google and Rebble!
I can't stress how thankful I am to @pebble_dev (Rebble.io) and Google, in general and to a few Googlers specifically, for putting in tremendous effort over the last year to make this happen. You've helped keep the dream alive by making it possible for anyone to use, fork and improve PebbleOS. The Rebble team has also done a ton of work over the years to continue supporting Pebble software, appstore and community. Thank you!
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Ok managed to jump into chrome (thanks @MarcelD505)
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This is our last attempt to get this working. It works quite well - my number is now blue again! It's out of our hands now (open source github.com/beeper/imessage).
Read our detailed response to Apple's accusations: blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-mov…
📣 UPDATE: amidst deliberate targeting of Beeper Cloud and Mini’s stable compatibility with iMessage, users can now restore their connections and resume reliable messaging starting today.
Get the full details on our blog: blog.beeper.com/p/imessage-a…
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My first PebbleOS firmware PR (vibe coded with @cline + sonnet 3.7) is an improvement I've wanted for years - delay vibration for new notifications until the text of notification is shown on screen github.com/coredevices/pebbl…
old // new (sound on!)
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Sent from my BlackBerry Q20
Running Android and Beeper, connected to my Pebble 2 Duo. What a world we live in.
Thank you Zinwa for creating this!
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Taking delivery to our warehouse of thousands and thousands of displays last week for Core Time 2...things are moving fast!
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now to figure out how to hack it to run pebble and beeper apps, add a chatgpt app and it will be perfect.
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Beeper Mini is here today. That may happen sometime in 2024 and they haven't said whether it will support encryption.
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My response when haters tell me for the Nth time to just give up already!
Full post: blog.beeper.com/p/beeper-mov…
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iMessage sent from @Pebble. Keep hacking! teddit.net/r/pebble/comments…
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5 years on and devs like linksky are STILL building new game engines and beautiful games like Pebblemon for @Pebble. Incredible! teddit.net/r/pebble/comments…
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