(BTW, after I read the title, my mind had to imagine the OP talking like Jerry Seinfeld!)
I think the 'value' of iMessage also depends on how you use it.
If you have friends/family overseas, it is fantastic! It'll save you a ton on international text plans.
There is also value if you like to sync among your own personal devices.
I think the value is a bit more limited for standard iPhone users who are texting other iOS devices domestically. Unless all of your contacts use iOS devices, you'll likely still need a texting plan. And the US carriers have made it cost prohibitive to have anything but the unlimited plan.a
Other than seeing some messages in blue, it's not that big of a difference.
Great point of it being of limited value if you have unlimited texting.
I send and receive thousands of texts a month, but they were mainly with my girlfriend, and a couple good friends of mine. If it wasn't for a few people, I'd probably do 200-300 per month. As it stood, I had to pay AT&T $20/month for unlimited.
I was excited about imessage because the few people I talk to frequently via SMS all have iphones. However, AT&Fee eliminated all but the unlimited text plan and pay-per-text plan b/c they saw the writing on the wall. Under pay per text, only 100 texts = $20 of the unlimited plan, so not practical for me considering I do a couple hundred with my non-iphone friends.
AT&T pissed me off so much by eliminating all other plans (I'd have preferred to go on the $5, 250 sms plan) that I decided to go with an alternative, which is not perfect but worth the savings to me.
I made a Google Voice account, which gives you a number and you get unlimited free text messages. I made a list of the people I text with on a regular to semi-regular basis, then told all the non-iphone friends on the list I had a new phone number and to update their contacts. I linked my Google Voice # to ring my iphone, so I wasn't confusing people by telling them I had separate numbers for voice and text.
The only drawback, if you are not jailbroken, is you have to use the Google Voice app to send and receive your texts, but you can turn push on and still get the notifications, and when you click on them in notification center, it'll open the Google Voice app. Another drawback is you can't send or receive MMS with Google Voice. This was minor for me, as I very rarely send or receive MMS with the people with no iphones.
If you are jailbroken, there is an amazing app called SMS GV extension, which I use. It makes it so that your texts to you Google Voice number come in via the native messages app like a normal text! Also you can set it so that outgoing texts go from your Google Voice # as well! It's also smart enough, that if the other person has ios 5 it still sends via imessage and not via your GV number.
I cancelled my text plan, did the switch, and so far from 10/8 until today, I have used a total of 20 SMS via my regular #, but most were either me testing, or stragglers who used my old number by accident. Considering I sometimes use 5,000 texts per month, I can live with paying for 15-20 at $0.20 per message and save from the $20/mo unlimited plan.
