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iMessage Brings Texting to iPod Touch and iPad Users
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Not so slim with 150 million iOS users out there, and besides, this is akin to BB users only being able to message other BB users via BBM.
Hmmm, let's see.
AT&T charges $10 for 1,000 text messages. They also charge $10 per gigabyte of data over 3G if you go over your plan. That gigabyte is equivalent to about 100,000 texts weighing in at 10kb each.
Still worried about overages, or are you just naysaying the future and afraid of change?
Google Voice and corresponding iPhone App
Check out http://google.com/voice, there's also an iOS app.
You get the functionality you want and your conversations are archived just like Gmail. The search isn't perfect, but you can get texts and calls and voicemails, for that matter, anywhere you have internet access, including overseas.
International IP, that is internet, messaging can be done in a variety of ways, of course. iMessages may just make it it easier to setup. If any 2 people on the planet each have a phone with internet access there's no reason to pay carrier fees beyond the cost of data for any communication.
Check out http://google.com/voice, there's also an iOS app.
You get the functionality you want and your conversations are archived just like Gmail. The search isn't perfect, but you can get texts and calls and voicemails, for that matter, anywhere you have internet access, including overseas.
International IP, that is internet, messaging can be done in a variety of ways, of course. iMessages may just make it it easier to setup. If any 2 people on the planet each have a phone with internet access there's no reason to pay carrier fees beyond the cost of data for any communication.
That would be sick. Sometimes when I'm in my house I just want to grab my MacBook pro and sit down. If I could text from my MacBook pro and know my conversation would be synced with my iPhone that would be very nice. However I don't think we need to completely knock out carriers money scheme for texting yet
Yep.
Apple finally got BBM.
So when did RIM finally get ICQ or Yahoo! Messenger or AOL Instant Messenger? For heavens sake, a large majority of the population were using AIM years before BBM ever existed. Folks have been using internet instant messaging clients on iOS since push notifications came out. Apple just decided to roll their own so they could sync the context of the conversation over the cloud.
Maybe I am failing to see something, but what is so special about BBM versus these other services that pre-dated it? How did Apple copy RIM versus Apple copying AOL or Yahoo! or GTalk?
Okay, I'm in Canada. Describe how can I send and receive text messages for free over 3G and WiFi to my friends' phones? I don't want to pay $0.05/text message and $0.75/MMS message that my provider charges.
I haven't been able to find a way to do this. None of the "free" text services/apps work in Canada.
I imagine the WhatsApp developers are feeling a bit gutted this morning. WhatsApp has the advantage of being cross-platform for now and I'll keep using it for that reason but if Apple ever release this cross platform or even just someone works out the protocol, they're toast.
RIM - already toast surely? I know more Blackberry users using WhatsApp than BBM now because they can talk to iPhone/Nokia/Android users.
It'd be nice if Apple had ONE messaging platform though - iChat, Facetime and now iMessage.
RIM - already toast surely? I know more Blackberry users using WhatsApp than BBM now because they can talk to iPhone/Nokia/Android users.
It'd be nice if Apple had ONE messaging platform though - iChat, Facetime and now iMessage.
If you watch the kenynote, you'll notice that there is a new 'twitter' keyboard like there is a keyboard for url's
True, RIM didn't invent instant messaging, but they were first to do it right on a phone.
BBM is more than just texting. With SMS, you reallydont know if your friend received your text, if they've read it, or if they're replying. With BBM, and now iMessage, you know thatthemessage has been received on there device, you know when it's been read, and you know when they are typing a response. Plus, you get to avoid high texting fees.
BBM is the one thing that I missed about my Blackberry when I switched, but now most of my friends have iPhones, so this will work great.
But do we know for sure that you can message non-iOS devices with iMessage? I've seen some talk of it sending a free SMS to devices that don't support iMessage, but is that confirmed anywhere?
*Edit*
Looks like if the receiving device can't use iMessage then your iPhone justs sends a regular SMS that will come out of your calling plan just like any other SMS, so it's only a free alternative to SMS if all of your contacts have iOS devices.
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i havent really used facetime but what if the devices are using the same apple id?
There is an option in settings to allow the text to default to your carrier if imessage "is not available"
I'm looking forward to this, and the improved notifications system the most. Especially since my girlfriend and I text each other a lot via our iPhone's. Now we can just use iMessage. Which will help me at least since I can downgrade my AT&T texting plan from unlimited to 1,000/month for $10.
Okay, thanks for asking so nicely, I thought Canadians were really polite. Try searching Google for the answer first, and contact me via PM if you can't figure it out.
Hmmm, let's see.
AT&T charges $10 for 1,000 text messages. They also charge $10 per gigabyte of data over 3G if you go over your plan. That gigabyte is equivalent to about 100,000 texts weighing in at 10kb each.
Still worried about overages, or are you just naysaying the future and afraid of change?
Actually, text messages are much, much smaller. As an example, your message as quoted above is roughly 320 bytes (if counting the BBCodes), twice the maximum allowed for SMS.
1000 "text" messages (SMS, 160 characters max) for 10$ = 0.01$ per message
6 250 000 "data" messages (one gigabyte diveded by 160 characters messages) for 10$ = 0.0000016$ per message
Via SMS: 1 cent equals one message.
Via data: 1 cent equals 6250 messages.
Haha, no, it's a myth, spread by our government's Ministry of Information. In truth, Canadians are probably the biggest ******s on the planet.
Anyway, I couldn't get any of the Google suggestions to work in Canada. Then again, maybe I suck at Google. So I'll be sending you a PM.
So this works even if I don't have wi-fi, like regular sms?
Maybe I'm missing something, but how is Apple managing to give away for free a service (texting) that is being provided by the carriers for a price?
Because the carriers are selling you something that costs nearly nothing at a markup of over 1000000%.
See reply #41 for the difference between SMS and data, both with costs from the same carrier.
I get that texts are cheap, I guess it's the way the message was presented that confused me:
It's not so much a new messaging app for iOS5 we're talking about here; the real news is the fact that Apple has presumably inked a deal with every phone carrier around the world for free text messages between iOS devices.
It's not so much a new messaging app for iOS5 we're talking about here; the real news is the fact that Apple has presumably inked a deal with every phone carrier around the world for free text messages between iOS devices.
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In this context, "text message" is not equal to "SMS".
iMessage is not SMS, it's regular data. The carriers don't have anything to say about it. Apart from using up your monthly data cap unless you use a free Wi-Fi connection, the carriers don't get a cut when you send an email, when you browse the Web or when you use FaceTime. They also won't get anything when you use iMessage.
iMessage is for iPad and iPod. iMessage replaces Messages on the iPhone. Your iPhone will automatically send an iMessage if you are texting another iOS user. It puts a little blue bubble next to their name in the contacts list and lets you know you are using an iMessage.
It's pretty dang neat. I've been playing around with it on both iPhone and iPad.
i have a 2 ipads 2 iphones (wife's and mine) and a ipod touch. all on the same apple id!!!
Does this mean that all of our conversations will be the same on all devices? So will my conversations show up on my wifes phone, as well as the other devices. does anyone know if there is a way not to sync this between all the devices. i dont care to switch from my iphone to my ipad to finish the conversation. i would like it to let me text my kids from my iphone to one of my ipads.
This is a great idea in theory, but with people with multiple devices with different users all on the same id, this is gonna be crap.
Does this mean that all of our conversations will be the same on all devices? So will my conversations show up on my wifes phone, as well as the other devices. does anyone know if there is a way not to sync this between all the devices. i dont care to switch from my iphone to my ipad to finish the conversation. i would like it to let me text my kids from my iphone to one of my ipads.
This is a great idea in theory, but with people with multiple devices with different users all on the same id, this is gonna be crap.
