Automattic, the owner of WordPress.com, acquired multiservice messaging app Beeper for $125 million last year and said it would merge it with Texts.com, an earlier acquisition in the same category. Following the merger, Beeper is releasing its first set of updated iOS and desktop apps in beta.
In a blog post, Beeper said that the desktop app was built on top of Texts.com, while the iOS app was built from scratch. The company added that the new set of apps is faster and consumes less battery power.
Kishan Bagaria, founder of Texts.com, said that users can still use the old version of the app, but the company will provide an easy way to switch to the new set of apps later.
Currently, the app uses Beeper Cloud to store messages and credentials for other services. In future versions, all this data will be stored on the device. In addition, the new apps will have on-device encryption for better privacy and security, and will support multiple accounts associated with the same messaging service. Bagaria also noted that in the future, the Mac app will allow users to send and receive iMessages.
Beeper was founded by Eric Migicovsky, who was the founder of Pebble smartwatch and a Y-Combinator partner. After the acquisition, Migicovsky became the head of messaging. Last month, however, Migicovsky announced that he was focusing on building Pebble again.
