Apple Has Finally Stuck A Dagger Into SMS. I Love It.
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Complaining about an MG headline being sensationalized is redundant but this one is way out there.
Apple has stuck zero daggers into anything. This is just a nice iOS to iOS messenger app. You could say the same thing about GTalk, Kik, Whatsapp, heck... even BlackBerry messenger. None have replaced SMS and none have any pointy objects covered in blood.
iMessages can hit the ground running from day one, since it is available down to iPhone 3GS and does not need new hardware. Also, Apple merged it with the existing Messages app, so I assume it will decide whether to SMS someone or iMessage someone for you. It's a win for iOS users either way.
No, it is a win for iOS users who deal with /any/ other iOS users. I would imagine that's most of them.
It is a win for fanboi hipsters.
FTFY
That isn't a small weakness - that's a killer. A replacement that isn't device independent isn't a replacement.
Secondly, and I raised this again - data is not cheap when roaming and that's probably when I most use SMS.
It doesn't mean that Apple, MS, Google, RIM can't all be a middleman for their respective users, but they certainly didn't mention that in the keynote.
Especially as you cannot easily restrict the data connection to only one app, and so you'll easily end up with some interesting surprises in your phone bill.
Local prepaid SIM is a good option, but requires you to:
a) have the time to find and acquire one
b) not receive calls or SMS to your regular number when in use (unless you have a dual SIM device)
This is very funny. Is your last name Jobs?
Haters gonna hate, but Steve just saved me a bunch of money, completely transparently. While pissing off a bunch of incompetent, exploitative carriers. I'm pretty pleased.
And even if it were only half, I'm still saving money since I don't have to change my habits. Pretty good deal. If you're not a carrier.
All of my dumb-phone friends (and my single Android friend), will just call me back if I text them, so I might as well dial them in the first place.
Compared to the cost of my data plan (and the data plan that you'll have to buy to use any iOS5 device), SMS is essentially free. Google Voice provides unlimited messaging for free, all you have to do is download an app. Making iMessage free is not a death blow, and presenting it as such does nothing but imply messaging is a commodity. Not even fax machines are a commodity yet, you have plenty of choices as to which service to use and which machine to buy.
> But it’s not just that iMessages kills SMS because it’s free. It kills it because it’s better.
When I read a straightforward sentence that presents an opinion as fact I expect evidence. In this case the evidence we are given is a link to the Apple website [1] and an assurance that iMessage is "streamlined and simplified."
I've only been following HN for a few months now so this is a serious question, has TechCrunch always been so horrible at journalism?
I don't get what the motivation is for having another closed system when they could have added interoperability with their desktop client + aol + gmail at a very minimal cost.
Edit: I'm basing this on the keynote comment that it is based on the push notifications stack.
I hope this tips SMS/MMS into some competing app that is platform independent so that SMS/MMS can disappear for ever!
SMS isn't going away anytime soon.
See the bottom of this page for supported devices:
iPhone 3GS iPhone 4
iPod Touch (3rd and 4th Generation)
iPad 1 & 2
It's the network effect all over again, any network's value is exponentially proportional to the number of users it has and SMS has more users.
A better approach would be to work better with IM like jabber/gTalk and MSN because as we move into the smart phone era nearly all cell phone users can send/receive those so your cell phone user overlay will be much closer to that of SMS, but where it will really kick SMS is that it will also cover all your friends at a computer not on their cell.
This is useless for anyone with friends with Android phones because you'll be back to SMS for them. Special clubs are no fun if all your friends and family aren't in them.
Demonstrably false.
The most widely quoted version of this is Metcalfe's Law, that the value of a network is dependent upon the square of the number of members. However the best empirical evidence is that the actual scaling factor is O(n log(n)). Which means that competing networks of different size and coexist for extended periods of time. (A phenomena that has actually happened on multiple occasions.)
Presumably that could even be automatically updated - the iOS 5 phone can contact an Apple database and register itself as "iMessages-aware", and sending devices can check the recipient phone numbers in that database.
Also, I note that sending contacts and delivery/read receipts are both features that SMS has always had.
This just seems like he's throwing buzzwords around, but I haven't seen iMessages in action. What about them is more streamlined and simplified than SMS?
What about them is more streamlined and simplified than SMS?
> (A well-informed little birdie tells me that Apple’s phone carrier partners around the world found out about iMessages when we did: during today’s keynote.)
They can't be thrilled (despite the limitations discussed here).
Another question I have: does this app make the difference between sending SMS messages and sending iMessages completely transparent for me as an end user? I hope so, but it seems like there are some interesting use cases to work out. And how do you "address" a message to an ipad user? Email address, like FaceTime?
Sorry for rambling a bit, I'm just really interested in how some of the implementation details are fleshed out.
The question is, why don't we all just use that? Is the interface really so much worse than SMS?