Beeper
What is Beeper
Beeper is a messaging app that seeks to end the issue of fragmentation, by allowing users to use any of 14 currently supported protocols for their chats. These protocols include things like Whatsapp, Telegram, Discord, Slack and many more.
Recently my turn has arrived to access to Beeper’s open beta. I’ve had a chance to try it out for the past couple of days and I must say, I’m impressed.
All Beeper had to do to catch my eye was to promise a convenient way to unify all the different networks that currently dominate the market: this kind of exploitation of platform’s network effects is harmful not only to the end consumer, who might not be able to link to all their acquaintances without using 10 different apps. Thankfully I’m happy to report that it does much, much more.
Beeper as a Daily Driver
Beeper has some strong competition in the way of chat app clients: from telegram, to element, to discord, there’s many affirmed workflows that open it up from nitpicking from each of the communities it’s trying to appeal to.
As an example, a telegram user using the mobile app might miss some of the gesture navigation controls to open the side menu, and find the single swipe to archive clumsy. On the other hand, a google messages user will feel right at home with with this default.
In other words, Beeper is definitely facing a major UX challenge, but from what I’ve had the chance to experience so far, I’d say they’re rising to it.
Interesting Positives
Other than the headline feature, the support for many different chat protocols, there’s a few interesting positive notes:
- Beeper’s Support: One of the more surprising experiences while using beeper was the close relationship users have with support. Given this is a preview, it’s not unexpected for the Beeper to expect feedback, but the way they integrated it is very fascinating: simply put, you get a chat with support integrated into the app. This makes the experience more personal, and the response times very short.
- Vim-like Navigation: simply put, the desktop app seems to have some modal-like workflow, which I find very intuitive: pressing esc will shift the focus from the chat to the navigator, allowing for j and k to be used to move up and down, other than the arrow keys. All keybinds are easily accessible in the settings window, or by pressing
ctrl+/. - Theming: the application allows for costum CSS theming. For examples or to suggest new themes, visit the github repo.
Closing Thoughts
Overall, I have no major gripes with the application. While there’s no plans to integrate discord/slack voice chat in the app, that was expected, as it’s not aiming for feature parity with every client whose protocol it supports, but it’s trying to be, simply put, the best messaging app possible. Personally, I believe the way forward is to keep refining the experience by keeping up with fixing the bugs that they are so incredibly open to receive feedback on, and working on customization options, such as the gesture navigation mentioned above.
Until then, I’ll still be using Beeper as my main messaging app, even if I still have to switch back to answer polls and use stickers, or send single-view pictures. The experience of having every chat in the same place, being able to navigate quickly with vim-like keybinds in the desktop app (don’t worry, it’s not the only option. You can still use the mouse or the arrows), and the excellent search implementation make it all around enjoyable to use.