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- Hacker News
- Sorry if this is obvious, but does it use the same thing OpenBubbles does? What's nice about that is that it just hooks directly into Apple's servers, so doesn't require a connection to your phone or anything.by pkulak
- Any possibility of handling phone calls too? Like making and receiving calls. Also, any plans of making Tether itself mobile-UI/UX friendly?
My plan is to get a Linux phone (or convert an Android phone to Linux) and use it as a daily driver, but keep an old iPhone around for regular calls and texts, and for compatibility with some apps like banking apps. Tether seems like it could be useful to bridge that gap, so all I'd need to do is just keep the iPhone in my vicinity and never actually have to operate it, unless it's for using some proprietary app/service.
by d3Xt3r - 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 :)
by blinkingled - 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.by ThinkBeat
- 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...
by harryposner - Of course kudos to the author. But I am pretty sure that the availability of iMessage and notifications over Bluetooth starting from iOS 26.5 is a direct result of the EU’s policies for smartwatch interoperability, so… kudos to the EU as well!by butokai
- 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.
by voakbasda - > 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.
by pzmarzly