Walkthrough of Apple's iMessages in iOS 5

[MacAddict1978]

I could care less about this. Why don't we fix how the iPhone does MMS?
It was insane that it went without a basic feature of non-smart phones for years, but it doesn't do this one simple thing well at all. If someone sends you a funny animation with sound, it never works. You get a seperate sound file from the animation that never actually animates.... something $20 phones are capable of. Group lists maybe?

Hey, it's great Apple is adding a new messaging feature, but it seems only to take the old messaging app and extend it to other IOS devices. How about we make that app current with technology in the past oh, 5 years if not longer?

 

[redscull]

The cost argument only favors iMessages when you're talking about text messages. As soon as you throw in attachments like pictures and videos, $30 for unlimited texts for all 4 phone lines on my familiy plan is a lot less expensive than the data plans.

It's actually a pretty simple mathematical concept. For AT&T in the US, which I bet a quite a few iPhone users are on, data has no unlimited plan. Texts do. There is some amount of data transfered at which point the method with an unlimited plan unarguably becomes cheaper. That amount of data isn't all that hard to reach with 4 phones sending a lot of pictures and some videos.

I really hope there is an option to tell the device not use iMessages, or do at least favor true MMS any time a picture is attached. Otherwise I'll have to up my 200MB plan.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I will go out and say this is bad. VERY bad.
A lot of people (myself included) own or will own iOS5 capible devices but DO NOT use nor want to use an iPhone. Top that off my iOS 5 device is normally in range of wifi 24/7 sitting on my night stand at home. I get txt messages quite often from people who own iPhones and I sure as hell DO NOT want it going to my iPod instead of my cell phone because I would never recieve it.

My mom, bother and sister all own iPhones. I own an Android phone and an iPod. They message me but I never get it because opps it goes to my iPod. Something I never use for messaging. I use my cell phone for that and my cell phone has a loader alert and is normally on me.

 

[scottparker999]

I could care less about this. Why don't we fix how the iPhone does MMS?
It was insane that it went without a basic feature of non-smart phones for years, but it doesn't do this one simple thing well at all. If someone sends you a funny animation with sound, it never works. You get a seperate sound file from the animation that never actually animates.... something $20 phones are capable of. Group lists maybe?

Hey, it's great Apple is adding a new messaging feature, but it seems only to take the old messaging app and extend it to other IOS devices. How about we make that app current with technology in the past oh, 5 years if not longer?

Maybe because Apple feels that 'funny animations' are not 'current technology'. It certainly didn't work for Geocities in recent years!

 

[ten-oak-druid]

That's pretty neat. I'm not sure if I'd downgrade from my $30 unlimited plan because I text plenty of people without iPhones.

Can you clarify something. Are you paying $30 for just the texting on top of data? Or is that data plus unlimited texting? I'm just curious.


I'm not directing this next comment specifically at you. But I have to say part of the problem I see in getting rid of these text fees is that people are debating the prices as though any text price is legitimate. Regardless of how good the plan is, everyone should understand that the text should be part of the data plan you pay for. I see a lot of people arguing that they get unlimited text as part of a package in response to people saying texting plans are outrageous. (I know that is not the point of your post.) But everyone should really understand that the phone companies are double charging for data when they do this. You can still look for good plans if texting is part of the data.

I also have seen people in the past try to tell me that texting is over a different part of the mobile band than data. Well the text either uses the phone band or the data band. One or the other. To charge for texts is double charging. I can see putting texts down as minute calls or some time length appropriate if it is part of the phone band.

And now we see Apple is making text work as part of the data plan. So certainly the phone companies can do this. Well they will have to if Android does this too and third party apps as well.

 

[MacAddict1978]

huh? $20 in the US certainly is "costly", when the data plan is $30 alone.

AT&T now at least gives you unlimited mobile to mobile on any carrier with the unlimited texting plan. (Though they don't add it for you. You have to add the option on att.com but it's free with that plan).

It is a money scam. $35-$50 for unlimited text and a data plan on top of your most likely $60 voice plan is just insane. Sometimes I look at things like Boost ($50 unlimited everything on Sprint network) and wonder why more people don't go that route... aside from the craptastic selection of phones.

 

[mmoosa]

I have an unlimited BIS plan that costs £7.50 pm on top of my contract, it includes anything that goes through BIS such as BBM, web browsing, streaming(gigabytes worth), emails including pics and files etc!

How exactly does iMessage kill this? It doesn't! I will be charged an arm and leg for the data.

Oh and in other countries Unlimited BIS goes for around £6 (South Africa)

 

[drewc1138]

Here's a completely unrelated question...

In that screenshot, it shows the sync icon in the toolbar, but it also shows that it's not connected to a power source (not charging). I was under the impression that wifi sync isn't available in this build. Am I just missing something?

 

[outphase]

I will go out and say this is bad. VERY bad.
A lot of people (myself included) own or will own iOS5 capible devices but DO NOT use nor want to use an iPhone. Top that off my iOS 5 device is normally in range of wifi 24/7 sitting on my night stand at home. I get txt messages quite often from people who own iPhones and I sure as hell DO NOT want it going to my iPod instead of my cell phone because I would never recieve it.

My mom, bother and sister all own iPhones. I own an Android phone and an iPod. They message me but I never get it because opps it goes to my iPod. Something I never use for messaging. I use my cell phone for that and my cell phone has a loader alert and is normally on me.

Why would your phone number be associated with iMessages if you don't have an iPhone?

 

[MacAddict1978]

I will go out and say this is bad. VERY bad.
A lot of people (myself included) own or will own iOS5 capible devices but DO NOT use nor want to use an iPhone. Top that off my iOS 5 device is normally in range of wifi 24/7 sitting on my night stand at home. I get txt messages quite often from people who own iPhones and I sure as hell DO NOT want it going to my iPod instead of my cell phone because I would never recieve it.

My mom, bother and sister all own iPhones. I own an Android phone and an iPod. They message me but I never get it because opps it goes to my iPod. Something I never use for messaging. I use my cell phone for that and my cell phone has a loader alert and is normally on me.

Your iPod/iPad doesn't have a phone number...and if your phone isn't an iPhone then even better. I'm sure they thought about this already. You also have to turn the feature on... so if you don't want messages going there, don't turn it on.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

I might like to point out sms messaging for carriers is near 100% profit for the carriers no matter how many messages you send a month. There is very little they have to handle on the back end of the system. Even with the 30 a month unlimited family plain on AT&T and sending lets say 15-20k messages in a month AT&T is netting lets say 99% profit off of it.
The data plans 5-6 gigs in a month cost AT&T about 30 bucks.

I just do not like Apple forcing you into iMessaging if there is a iOS 5 capable device linked to that number.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

You don't need unlimited data for IMs though.

I can't believe that some people think texting is anything but a scam in the current market. If everyone used IM instead of texting, there'd be no need for texting plans and the increase in data usage wouldn't even be noticeable.

I don't believe any real consumer would suggest paying for text messaging on top of data is nothing but a scam. I really am under the impression that there are people lobbying for the phone companies when they try to suggest otherwise or confuse unlimited data plans with text fees.

I mean what consumer is really going to suggest being double billed for the data of a text message is appropriate whether it is pay per text or a text plan paid for?

If we can all agree that paying for text messages on top of a data plan is not good, I'll be glad to take $5 a month from anyone who feels like that money is burning a hole in their pocket.

 

[MacAddict1978]

Maybe because Apple feels that 'funny animations' are not 'current technology'. It certainly didn't work for Geocities in recent years!

Animations, videos, pics, sounds, etc. are kind of the point of MMS. When your MMS app doesn't actually let those things works, why is it there? It's not just funny animations, that was just 1 example. The only thing IOS MMS does well is pictures.... which, um, is sad...

 

[Krizoitz]

Are you kidding? AT&T's text messages cost $1,310 per Megabyte. Thats pretty darn costly.

text message plans aren't "costly"

Be interesting to see how much data this service uses for both ends of the conversation. Data plans are going to be very easily breached with iCloud and iMessaging.

Also Apple will have to move from udp to TCP for its notifications imo.

Not expensive?
Price/MB of sending to the Hubble: $166/mb
Price/MB of for ATT texting (1000 msg plan): $74.90

Ok, so sending to the freaking Hubble Telescope is only twice as expensive as texting. But wait, that assume a best case scenario, that every single text message you send is using up 140 characters. It would take 7490 messages at full data to reach a megabyte.

But wait again you say, what about the unlimited plan, thats only $20 a month! But that only helps if you actually send that many messages per month. I.e. you send (or recieve) roughly 250 texts per day. Thats a hell of a lot of texting.

And think about this. If you made a voice call and used your phone as an audio modem and sent at 56K modem speeds it would take you about 2.5 minutes to send the same equivalent of data. Since phone companies round up thats a 3 minute call. But hey lets round up to 5 minutes just in case we aren't getting ideal speeds. Even assuming you are sending via an expensive option like a pay phone at $0.50 a minute you are talking a maximum cost of $2.50. And using phone cards you can get prices a lot cheaper than that, like an order of magnitude.

On top of ALL that text messages piggy back on unused parts of the signals that the phone companies are sending to the phones anyway! Its not extra bandwidth!

In short, text messaging is a huge rip off and the fact that prices have pretty much stayed in lockstep accross the carriers is a bad sign, not to mention they have gone UP in recent years.

 

[Trauma1]

For AT&T in the US, which I bet a quite a few iPhone users are on, data has no unlimited plan.

Not true.

 

[southernpaws]

This won't happen because there are many different idevices. If it would have happened to anything, it would have been the iPod and it wasn't even close.

No chance

He gave a poor example with Kleenex, but his point still has a sound basis. Too many companies are tacking on i to places it doesn't belong. iTrip, iChair, iPancake.

The point he was trying to make, however, is that apples marketing department has created a phenomenon with the iNames and they absolutely shod continue to use it as long as they want to maintain a hold on it's branding power; this directly contradicts the assertion made by the poster he was replying to initially.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

I might like to point out sms messaging for carriers is near 100% profit for the carriers no matter how many messages you send a month. There is very little they have to handle on the back end of the system. Even with the 30 a month unlimited family plain on AT&T and sending lets say 15-20k messages in a month AT&T is netting lets say 99% profit off of it.
The data plans 5-6 gigs in a month cost AT&T about 30 bucks.

All the text should be part of the data plan. It is a scam perpetrated by the carriers to charge extra.

I just do not like Apple forcing you into iMessaging if there is a iOS 5 capable device linked to that number.

imessage is an app. I'm sure if you want to message the traditional way you can open that app. Apple isn't forcing anything.

 

[southernpaws]

What if internet connection is not available (neither 3G, Edge, or WiFi), but cellular connection is available (highly unlikely), will iOS know that it needs to send it as a regular sms instead of iMessage? What if I simply want to stick to regular sms instead of iMessage, can I turn that off? Can I have control? Can I have a CHOICE?

You guys do realize where things are headed right. Yes iCloud is great now, but its headed towards hey-why-do-you-need-to-download-music-to-your-drive-we-can-just-give-you-access-to-it-through-the-cloud-without-you-ever-having-to-download-it-theres-nothing-new-to-learn-simply-purchase-songs-as-you-used-to-and-play-from-any-device-immediately-no-need-to-waste-store type of cr*p. You will NEVER OWN anything, you will have to rely on a "service". I don't like where things are headed, I think they're great now, but the cloud is going to become everybody's hard drive one day. Look at google chrome.

Nice rant, but you obviously missed the part of the article that directly answers your question, I.e. You can turn SMS off and use imessage exclusively, and vice versa.

Save your diatribe for another time.

 

[thederby]

An SMS is a fraction of a MB, if not a kB.

1120 bits

 

[southernpaws]

This just occurred to me, what if I have an iPad and a Blackberry (or any other non-iOS phone)? My iPhone-using friend tries texting (iMessaging) me, I'm not by my iPad and the iMessage goes to it. I wouldn't know he tried contacting me until I open my iPad.
The nice thing about BBM is that it is a separate app; with the Messgages/iMessage integration, I would assume it would always default to iMessage.
The person texting/iMessgaing would have to know what kind of phone you have before hand to select if they wanted it to be SMS or iMessage.

No they don't. Read the walkthrough

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Your iPod/iPad doesn't have a phone number...and if your phone isn't an iPhone then even better. I'm sure they thought about this already. You also have to turn the feature on... so if you don't want messages going there, don't turn it on.

no but they do have an Apple ID which is link to my phone number and I have a feeling Apple will use that to link everything up.

 

[southernpaws]

I could care less about this. Why don't we fix how the iPhone does MMS?
It was insane that it went without a basic feature of non-smart phones for years, but it doesn't do this one simple thing well at all. If someone sends you a funny animation with sound, it never works. You get a seperate sound file from the animation that never actually animates.... something $20 phones are capable of. Group lists maybe?

Hey, it's great Apple is adding a new messaging feature, but it seems only to take the old messaging app and extend it to other IOS devices. How about we make that app current with technology in the past oh, 5 years if not longer?

Are you talking about .gifs? That would have been legacy support even in 2007.

You're seriously complaining about not getting animations? Ive never even heard of anyone sending animation by text. I think you're in quite a small majority.

 

[OwlsAndApples]

iMessages looks great. What would be perfect (for me anyway) is if you could set it up just for MMS-ing (all texts remain as SMS). I get unlimited texts so they're not a problem, picture messages on the other hand are 10p a pop on my contract, so this would be a lovely way to sidestep that minor charge. ...and then just email pictures to non-iOS devices I suppose...

 

[btcutter]

I will go out and say this is bad. VERY bad.
A lot of people (myself included) own or will own iOS5 capible devices but DO NOT use nor want to use an iPhone. Top that off my iOS 5 device is normally in range of wifi 24/7 sitting on my night stand at home. I get txt messages quite often from people who own iPhones and I sure as hell DO NOT want it going to my iPod instead of my cell phone because I would never recieve it.

My mom, bother and sister all own iPhones. I own an Android phone and an iPod. They message me but I never get it because opps it goes to my iPod. Something I never use for messaging. I use my cell phone for that and my cell phone has a loader alert and is normally on me.

It won't be a problem.

Just turn off the iMessage (unavailable).... This is like BBM, Google Messenger etc. When other party see you are not avail they won't send you a message to your iDevice.

 

[ten-oak-druid]

He gave a poor example with Kleenex, but his point still has a sound basis. Too many companies are tacking on i to places it doesn't belong. iTrip, iChair, iPancake.

The point he was trying to make, however, is that apples marketing department has created a phenomenon with the iNames and they absolutely shod continue to use it as long as they want to maintain a hold on it's branding power; this directly contradicts the assertion made by the poster he was replying to initially.

I was the original poster.

All I know is that I am a strong proponent of apple products because I use them regularly. My first hand experience of witnessing MANY Windows users (primarily Dell owners) I personally know have such headaches with their equipment that they eventually switch to Apple makes me tend to overlook the few gripes I have with Apple from time to time. The trade off is worth it to me.

However I am starting to groan when I see the overuse of "i" in front of everything. Given my strong affinity for Apple, that is saying something.

There is a difference between Apple unveiling a tablet called the "ipad" similar to the iphone and ipod and naming every single feature and app with an "i" in front.

In my opinion it is starting to look ridiculous.

I realize the argument about brand recognition. It is a valid argument. I feel though that having already purchased an iOS device, the brand is recognized. "imessage" isn't going to deliver the message to people that there are iphones out there. I can't understand what value in naming another app with an i is.

Anyway it is all opinion. I've given mine and I'm sure there are many arguments of why apple should continue doing what they are doing with "i".

I'm not saying apple should drop the i from iphone or ipad or that they shouldn't put the i in front of any new device. But they can certainly come up with some new names. Apple has been known for making drastic changes. Some of which leave people scratching their heads. Apple eliminated floppy drives from all their machines when many thought it was a mistake. (I don't need to hear how some company tentatively started doing this before apple did with some models first thank you). I think perhaps Apple should buck the trend internally now before more the "i" becomes silly to too many people. Because if people start laughing at the over use of "i" then they will laugh at all i-products including the iphone. Then it is a real problem for apple. Apple needs to protect their brand by not overusing the "i".