iMessage hit or miss?

[QuarterSwede]

Yeah but not all of them. And then you'll enjoy paying for every incoming and out going text ala carte.

Black Berry Messenger didn't kill of SMS, and there was a time whe RIM was selling Black Berry's like hot cakes and it was a compelling exclusive to the Black Berry line of phones. It wasn't a game changer. There are cross platform apps that do the same thing, and those haven't taken off either.

Add in that EVERY wireless carrier is starting to tweak their text plans or looking into changes, these services no matter who makes them, can't replace text messaging plans.

There's also email, IM clients (AIM, YAHOO! Messenger) etc that even allow you to text to phone numbers and user names and we all still text.

Where this will be a success is for iPod touch and iPad users, and that iMessege alleges to automatically switch back and forth and "just work" without you needed to think about it. I still want to know how it knows not to send to my ipad and to my iphone etc. or do you end up with the messages all over all your devices?

I'm not saying it'll be cost effective for everyone to dump text message plans but for me it will definitely be.

 

[Sedrick]

Once Apple attains world domination... hit.

 

[Skika]

iMessage is great! I can't wait.

i can't wait to get it for my iPad and start texting from there

 

[unlimitedx]

while different iMessaging is still a single device lock in and it is not a real big threat to AT&T or any carrier and they know it. They killed off the plan because they could get away with it and a vast majority of the people are on unlimited txting plans. I am on a unlimited txting family plan which has 5 numbers on it all unlimited for a grand total of 30 bucks a month. (Aka 6 bucks per number)
Txting is near pure profit to the carriers.

The bigger threat is services like Google voice which right now work for everything but MMS and when that finally happen well it is all over. Google voice works great on Android phones and to be blunt its VVM is a hell of a lot better than what Apple offers.

When iMessage was first announced, according to news reports carriers were actually blindsided by this feature, since SMS is a known cash cow for the carriers. I absolutely agree that AT&T was able to eliminate the $10 texting plan because they could get away with it. But, for users who have many other friends with also are iPhone owners, essentially many of them would opt in to downgrade to the next tier, which AT&T eliminated (AT&T's marketing claims that the vast majority of the people are on unlimited txting plans, but there are also plenty who text less than 1000 texts a month). Regardless, $30 for texting, even 5 people, is an absurb amount of money when it costs pennies to send the data over the network.

 

[Agent-P]

I think this will actually get used solely for the reason that it is integrated into the iPhone SMS app and t gets used automatically. As for users on an iPod touch or iPad, I think it'll still get used just because people with iPhones would end up sending their iMessages to these devices.

I'm dumping my texting plan as soon as iOS 5 goes public. Most of the people I text are on iPhone's anyway.

Unfortunately, I cannot drop my unlimited texting plan because the majority of people I text use android phones and a couple of WP7 phones. I only have a few iPhone toting friends that I text regularly enough for it to matter.

 

[QuarterSwede]

Regardless, $30 for texting, even 5 people, is an absurb amount of money when it costs pennies to send the data over the network.

It doesn't even cost that much. It's piggybacking on the carrier signal which is always present. It's almost not quantifiable it's so cheap. Even a tenth of a penny per message is a rip off.

 

[MassiveAttack]

I'm going to say miss, because apple's track record such things (FaceTime MobileMe, etc) has not been stellar. Apple works well when its a product/service/software for single user but when it comes to social type stuff they don't do as well.

Don't forget what a failure Ping was.

 

[ct2k7]

Carriers can make up for this by increasing rates for data.

 

[supermac96]

I'll let you know when i get it.

But from just it's features, i can say that it's already a hit for me.

I don't understand how it even can be a miss?

Because as I understand you can only text from apple device to apple device so most people with iPhones will stick to the normal text system and people with iPod touches will keep using apps like text plus that can text to all phones. But maybe I'm wrong about this and imessage will be able to text to all phones? In that case it will be a big hit for iPod and iPad users.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

When iMessage was first announced, according to news reports carriers were actually blindsided by this feature, since SMS is a known cash cow for the carriers. I absolutely agree that AT&T was able to eliminate the $10 texting plan because they could get away with it. But, for users who have many other friends with also are iPhone owners, essentially many of them would opt in to downgrade to the next tier, which AT&T eliminated (AT&T's marketing claims that the vast majority of the people are on unlimited txting plans, but there are also plenty who text less than 1000 texts a month). Regardless, $30 for texting, even 5 people, is an absurb amount of money when it costs pennies to send the data over the network.

Oh I complete agree txting really should be free. It cost the carriers next to nothing to deal with it.
While the carriers were blind sided by iMessaging they also know it is not a real threat to them. BBM did not hurt them that much nor have any of the long list of free services that get around it. For example Google voice which is by far much more powerful than iMessaging.

 

[motty2307]

I voted "hit" just because of the seamless nature of the entire thing. I feel this will be a perfect implementation of such a service.

 

[nunes013]

i guess i would call it a hit because the user doesn't have to do anything extra to send an iMessage. the idevice automatically looks up whether it is sending it to an iOS 5 device with iMessage. if it is then it will send via iMessage. pretty simple. the only thing that would help is when you have contact you should note whether they are using an iPhone so you know before you send.