Tether: iMessage, SMS, etc. on Linux

168

zzackb 6 days ago 84 commentsRead Article on zackbartel.com

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86% Positive

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Discussion (84 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

pzmarzly•about 3 hours ago

> Personally, I think putting an interoperability protocol implementation behind a copyleft license is a little unfortunate!

Huh, haven't thought of it. Just relicensed ancs4linux to MIT.

voakbasda•about 3 hours ago

I love HN. Read an article that raises a reasonable point about a project’s license, and that project’s author shows up to announce they were convinced and changed the license accordingly. Repo was updated 5 minutes ago.

It’s things like this that give me hope for the world.

stackghost•about 2 hours ago

Not to be Debbie Downer but software licensing has no effect on what matters to billions of people.

We are facing very real global and societal issues that people on this site are actively exacerbating, like disinformation and climate change.

If a dude changing an inconsequential text file on GitHub gives you hope for the world, then please broaden your perspective.

kian•about 2 hours ago

So I'm guessing you don't do anything except what matters to billions of people? Always 100% fully generalized contributions, never making your local world a better place? Your only local contributions being to tell off people who are grateful that their lives are materially improved by someone else's smaller actions... You must be beloved by your community.

kaonwarb•about 2 hours ago

Making one small corner of the world a little bit better is a good thing. There's not much use in complaining that it's not as big of an impact as could hypothetically be achieved on some larger issues.

literallyroy•about 2 hours ago

I saw someone smile at the park the other day, do you think you could talk to them for me?

yard2010•about 2 hours ago

Not GP but I feel like that's kinda their point - the fact that we still have this platform to collaborate in such an organic way is truly remarkable and must not be taken for granted.

sicktriple•about 1 hour ago

This is verifiably false. Without copyleft licensing like the GPL or permissive licensing like MIT and Apache we literally would not have the internet, or it would be somehow even more wildly dystopian and proprietary than it already is.

inigyou•about 1 hour ago

Actually a lot of that bad stuff billionaires are doing is enabled by MIT licensed software. Like, device lockdown is illegal with GPL3

rewgs•about 2 hours ago

You are indeed being a Debbie Downer.

kees99•about 3 hours ago

Isn't this[0] the use-case that is supposedly covered by LGPL?

[0] copyleft-licensed library that could be legally linked into non-copyleft code base.

LeFantome•about 1 hour ago

Thank you!

voakbasda•about 3 hours ago

Mega-kudos to the author for chipping away at the wall around Apple’s garden.

I have had a iPhone for 15 years, and I have only ever been able to back it up with iTunes on windows (as I will never buy a Mac).

Apple’s refusal to provide interoperability borders on criminal. I wish there was a better option.

rpdillon•32 minutes ago

I'm shouting into the wind here a fair amount, but I just discovered DeltaChat and ArcaneChat. ArcaneChat is available only on Android, but DeltaChat is available on iOS and uses chatmail relays. My family has found it to be super useful and effective. I don't think it's viable to convert everybody in my social circle, but I've been very happy with the apps and attachments, notifications, and general performance.

https://chatmail.at/

I'm considering running my own chatmail relay, although I haven't tried that yet.

abcd_f•about 3 hours ago

Have a look at https://github.com/libimobiledevice/libimobiledevice and iOS backup projects that are based on it.

dadoum•about 3 hours ago

Or idevice [0] (the one I prefer), or go-ios [1], or pymobiledevice3 [2]

[0]: https://github.com/jkcoxson/idevice

[1]: https://github.com/danielpaulus/go-ios

[2]: https://github.com/doronz88/pymobiledevice3

voakbasda•about 3 hours ago

Over the years, I have tried to make that solution work, but it never ever went smoothly.

Maybe it’s time to try it again, but it’s an arms race from what I remember. Apple just keeps changing things; if you’re on the latest iOS version, it was unlikely to work. Has that changed?

timcobb•about 2 hours ago

Pixel is nice, in my opinion better than iOS, and more open for now

KetoManx64•37 minutes ago

Especially with GrapheneOS

Danox•about 1 hour ago

Doesn’t interoperability work two(Windows)-three(Linux) ways?

sneak•about 2 hours ago

You could stop using iMessage and iCloud.

Rohansi•about 2 hours ago

Green bubbles, WhatsApp, Signal, etc. are not an option for a lot of people. I don't get it either.

agoodusername63•about 2 hours ago

Because techies on average aren't socially popular enough to get anybody to make any effort to msg them on a better platform.

smt88•36 minutes ago

I know people who have iPhones just for FaceTime because young and old non-techies use those a lot.

I’ve gotten my close friends onto Signal but there are still always 3-4 group chats where that isn’t possible.

k4rli•about 2 hours ago

Or leave the walled garden entirely. GrapheneOS has all the same stuff.

harryposner•about 1 hour ago

The linked blueferry doc is excellent. Back in 2020, inspired by a comment on HN, I looked into writing a proxy to send and receive iMessages on Linux through an iPhone connected with Bluetooth Message Access Profile (MAP). I was able to send and receive messages, but I ran into the problem mentioned in the doc in the "Group metadata side channel" section: the bMessages in the inbox included the message originator, but didn't include the recipients, even though the MAP standard says that it "shall" be included (see page 22). I didn't know about ANCS, so it didn't occur to me to use that channel, and without any way to tell what context a message was sent in, I couldn't do threading, so I decided it wasn't worth pursuing.

The group messages were the biggest problem, and that's what made me give up, but there were some other issues:

- Shared links showed up as "Website: Short description (example.com)" and didn't include the URL

- Images weren't shown at all

I might take a look and see how blueferry handled those limitations.

[blueferry doc] https://github.com/erikwb/blueferry/blob/main/PROTOCOL.md

[inspiration] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23411520#23413394

[Bluetooth MAP standard] https://www.bluetooth.com/specifications/specs/message-acces...

ThinkBeat•about 1 hour ago

This is all made possible by broker app on the iPhone / (or other device) to send data back and forward. When I first read the headline I thought it would integrate directly into the Apple ecosystem without needing middlemen which would have been crazy impressive since I believe it is or very near entirely impossible.

mmoustafa•about 1 hour ago

not impossible, pypush did it 3 years ago

blinkingled•about 1 hour ago

As a KDE Connect user for a few years I know it doesn't always work without reconnecting especially with sleep cycles on the phone and the laptop but it does everything on Android at least - clipboard sync, notifications, sms, calls, remote control and media playback control. Must be iOS restrictions that made the author go through the admirable effort.

IOW Linux ecosystem has better vertical integration without any direct ties with Android :)

xur17•31 minutes ago

Does KDE connect work with other, non KDE window managers?

zackb•11 minutes ago

Yes, and it's great. But you can't iMessage / SMS or get Notifications with iPhone.

dadoum•about 1 hour ago

Oh, so it requires an app, which isn't even available on older iOS versions… that's such a shame, I wanted to try it out on my iOS 17.0 iPhone. (and I thought it was just using the official Apple ways used for macs, so that's a small disappointment)

hollow-moe•about 1 hour ago

Very nice, I'll say Continuity can absolutely be implemented fully on Linux though ! I think the thing we'd need very first is an actual communication "backbone" that would span bluetooth,wifi-direct and even mesh networks like Tailscale or smth. Continuity is partly based on AWDL, Apple proprietary implementation of Wifi-Direct to allow high speed local inter device communication and allow things like Sidecar with an iPad. Then we could implement protocols over that backbone to implement actual useful applications.

lxe•about 1 hour ago

Oh, fantastic, thank you. If this allows me to drop files onto an iPhone without me having to open an app, that would solve a lot of my issues. I use localsend right now and although I really love it, it still requires me to always keep the app open on the phone.

BatchJob•about 1 hour ago

You cant really complain about the ecosystem if you insist on using an iPhone. What you think is interop is viewed by Apple as hostile and if they could find a way to sue you for it they would.

binkHN•about 1 hour ago

Fair, but the only other major player here, Google, has not done much better; RCS is still locked up with no API in sight.

jonathanwallace•about 2 hours ago

This is incredibly timely as I moved my first choice personal computer to full time linux this week (and am a long time iPhone user who loves the autofill as well). I'll be happily contributing when I find an itch that needs to be scratched.

teo_zero•about 2 hours ago

This is for iPhones only. Do I assume correctly that the issue is solved for Android, instead?

phrotoma•about 2 hours ago

Also curious. I keep messages.google.com in a pinned tab but the number of times I have to go find my phone and re-authenticate is too damned high.

bigyabai•about 1 hour ago

On Android, you can use KDE Connect on KDE and GSConnect on GNOME. It has a Messaging app that syncs with your phone's SMS.

SoftTalker•about 3 hours ago

Wasn't there another iMessage clone for Linux/Android a few years back and they got a C&D from Apple? Or maybe Apple just blocked their service?

jnovek•about 2 hours ago

There’s bluebubbles which runs a server on a Mac and syncs your messages that way.

cromka•35 minutes ago

It's derivative OpenBubbles doesn't, though

aaronax•about 3 hours ago

Beeper?

SoftTalker•about 3 hours ago

Yes that sounds right.

trollbridge•about 1 hour ago

As a general rule, Apple will shut down an operator of such service once it gets used to pump out spam.

Of course, every spammer dreams of their spam texts coming through as a blue bubble.

kvemkon•about 2 hours ago

Is there an easy way to share iOS clipboard to Linux directly using local WiFi without going through any cloud?

Edit: clarification in my reply later in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49492003

cpuguy83•about 2 hours ago

"Easy" is subjective, but tether seems like it would do this? There is also kdeconnect (don't let the "KDE" fool you).

kvemkon•about 2 hours ago

That's what I thought at first but then discovered:

> universal clipboard is synchronized over internet, it is not done trough cable connection. it uses apple continuity service, what you put into UC is uploaded into apple cloud,..

https://github.com/libimobiledevice/libimobiledevice/issues/...

That's why I'm a bit confused now.

> don't let the "KDE" fool you

Being GNOME2-then-MATE user, it really would.

bestnameever•about 2 hours ago

You can use the app that is the subject of this thread:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tether-linux-companion/id67620...

cassianoleal•about 2 hours ago

Literally OP does this. It doesn't share it automatically like iOS-to-macOS integration but you open the app, click a button - job done.

desireco42•about 1 hour ago

I have Google Fi, we always had messages.google.com to even get calls, which I never did. Convenient especially because I write longer messages.

Never felt superiour over others for it.

porridgeraisin•about 2 hours ago

I use whatsapp primarily, so no tethering needed, but SMS of course for one-time passwords and the like. I didn't want to open my phone for that. So I had a coding agent write an android background app for me that listens for SMS and forwards it to a discord server, and side loaded it. So now I get a discord notif on my laptop with the OTP.

internet_points•about 1 hour ago

there is also kde connect (or valent for the gnome UI)

2Gkashmiri•about 3 hours ago

I don't know.

What's a feature not in KDE connect that the writer wanted and it didn't have?

They could always submit a pr.

Beeper exists you know....

I have a question. It's fine to build for your own self but is it okay to release something in public when the environment is a moving target and you are just a one-man team keeping it afloat?

Wouldn't it be better to go behind established FOSS products and not reinvent the wheel when you don't have to?

I understand no one can tell you how to or why to do certain things but there comes a time, when youw want to help, not build the next temple os and instead help manjaro or whatever is cool these days?

cassianoleal•about 3 hours ago

I find KDE Connect severely lacking. It's great that it exists, and maybe it's really excellent with Android, but for iOS it's really not there yet.

Even features that do exist don't always work reliably. I can't send files between devices, most of the time clipboard sharing doesn't work either, and there's loads not implemented.

> What's a feature not in KDE connect that the writer wanted and it didn't have?

From TFA:

"And Tether now supports: iMessage, SMS, Notifications, Contact sync on Linux. In addition to its previous: File Transfer, Clipboard Sync, OTP handling."

> Wouldn't it be better to go behind established FOSS products and not reinvent the wheel when you don't have to?

From TFA:

"Before you ask, I know KDE Connect exists. It's great! If you're on Android you should definitely use it. The problem is that it didn't do what I wanted and it's roadmap indicated it never would."

Maybe next time read the article before commenting?

foresto•about 1 hour ago

Let's be fair: At least some of the features you quoted do work in KDE connect in my experience, so I had the same question as GP. Even after reading the article.

cassianoleal•19 minutes ago

Like I mentioned, I found KDE Connect to be lacking but mostly even the feature that it does have, don't always work.

So far (really only a couple hours), Tether seems a lot more polished.

Gualdrapo•about 2 hours ago

One of the not cool things about KDE Connect is that its "plugins" system doesn't seem like it.

Where are more plugins for it? How you add them? Where are docs for creating them?

I haven't had a great feeling when asking its dev about stuff but hope that situation has changed. Having a proper plugin system would let people like OP extend KDEConnect and potentially benefit more people, instead of being subjected to the will of its devs and the roadmap.

inigyou•about 1 hour ago

I suspect this is the wrong way to think about it. Since it's FOSS, you don't even need a plugin system to extend it. Likely the plugins are just an internal organisation structure.

alex7o•about 3 hours ago

I would argue that if you have the same setup as the author then use it. Yes a moving target but won't you fix something you use for yourself? Also point an agent at it get it back working in a few hours of waiting :P

utopiah•about 3 hours ago

Glad you brought that up, I was actually going to suggest not to replace KDE Connect but rather to become interoperable with it because AFAIR (but didn't touch an iPhone for few years now) there is no iOS client for it.

cpuguy83•about 2 hours ago

kdeconnect has an iOS client.

jrm4•43 minutes ago

A genuine question, does anyone here actually use KDE Connect as a daily driver to actually keep in touch with people? I would love to but, for example, when I'm on a university campus the possibility of keeping those two devices connected appears difficult if not impossible. I keep looking into both Bluetooth and/or the VPN route every once in a while, but it ends up not working and I give up. Something I'm missing, perhaps?

tamimio•about 3 hours ago

Personally, few years ago I wanted to use kde connect with my iPhone, and I don’t remember the distro now but it’s when I had to install kde connect later it wasn’t part of it, and after almost a whole day of googling around and trying to compile and solve whatever missing libraries or drivers, it never connected.. so yeah I welcome the fact that there are alternatives, always!