Apple shocked a lot of us back in 2010 when they announced iMessage, probably none more than the carriers who for years changed an absolutely obscene amount of money to send short text messages to and fro. When Apple made iMessage free (except for the data change, if you were on cellular) that carrier gouging was put to an end -- presuming everyone you texted used iOS. But is that the case? Do enough of your friends, family, colleagues, and contacts use iMessage to really put the kibosh on SMS?
For me it's still a very mixed bag. Some of my friends use iPhones, so iMessage is easy. Many of my family and the people I work with still don't even use smartphones, let alone iPhones, so iMessage is a non-starter. Also, with the just-released OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has brought iMessage back to the Mac, and you can quickly send and receive texts, pictures, locations, and contacts right on your computer. It's really fast, but it's also messy. Right now my iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air are all in a constant race to see which can beep and buzz first and most often.
iOS 6 promises to make some things better, letting us combine our phone numbers and Apple IDs, so at least we won't have to wonder which message is going to which device any more.
But that still leaves us stuck on the old SMS system for all our Windows, Android, BlackBerry, and other non-iOS or OS X using friends and family, with no real future in sight. (Because the odds of Apple creating iMessage clients for those platforms are about the same as the odds of them putting a keyboard and kickstand on the next iPhone...)
So given all that, when you're typing away on Messages all day, are most of the ones you send and receive good old iMessage blue, or cold hard carrier cash green? Do most of the people you text with have iMessage, or do most of them not? Hit the poll up top and then give me the details in the comments below!
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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/XUxFZNkalO4/story01.htm
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