[alligator]

Anyone out there actually use SMS messaging? How do you use it - just type a phone number in the "to" field?

[Peter]

yeah, just enter a mobile phone number in the to field.
SMS not popular in US?

[alligator]

Unfortunately it isn't, especially with those not in their teens.

[Mithras]

If you're lonely you can always SMS GOOGLE (466453) with something like "translate hello in french"

[macfantn]

i am 33 and I text all the damn time as do most of my friends who are my age or older.

[IceEnclosure]

31, mad texter.

[moonmonkey]

32, flabbergasted.

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

38. The only texts I ever had to send read "You're fired. Take your stuff home at the end of the day".

Made me feel so bad after a while I had to change career direction.

[Buckaroo]

can this thing do AIM or some other messaging service?

[Peter]

no.

[alligator]

I'm 33, and I don't know anyone who sends SMS messages. Maybe there's something in the water here.

[wallinbl]

No clue why anyone would SMS. Too much of a pain to type on phones. Either make a call or get a Blackberry. Besides, I prefer to keep my communications going through as few mediums as possible (phone/email - why do we need 12 chat programs, SMS, facebook and myspace on top of that?)

[macfantn]

Originally Posted by wallinbl 

No clue why anyone would SMS. Too much of a pain to type on phones. Either make a call or get a Blackberry. Besides, I prefer to keep my communications going through as few mediums as possible (phone/email - why do we need 12 chat programs, SMS, facebook and myspace on top of that?)

predictive text is great, i can type insanely fast on my phone.

[IceEnclosure]

so can I, without predictive text. I'm on a BlackJack. Easy-peasy. And Wallinbl, I spend a lot of time out on the town. I gotta wait till I get home to find out that a hot little latina wants me to pull her panties off with my teeth? not a chance pal.

[Alezone]

SMS comes in handy in situations like these...

1. When you're at a movie
2. When you're at the club with loud music blasting
3. When it's late/early and you're not sure if the person you're trying to contact is awake
4. It's like a pager in the old days, giving the receiver the freedom to reply whenever they feel like.

I average 10 sms a day and maybe 3 calls on my cellie (which wouldn't last more than 5 mins combined)

[OldManMac]

I don't see the point of it, but that's probably because I'm so old, I used to use a stone and chisel to do documents, so I'd rather talk on the phone. My daughters, however, are 28 and 32, and they SMS a lot.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by Alezone 

SMS comes in handy in situations like these...

1. When you're at a movie
2. When you're at the club with loud music blasting
3. When it's late/early and you're not sure if the person you're trying to contact is awake
4. It's like a pager in the old days, giving the receiver the freedom to reply whenever they feel like.

I average 10 sms a day and maybe 3 calls on my cellie (which wouldn't last more than 5 mins combined)

And add to that, here's some more adult situations where SMS is essential:

1. In an office situation where you want information silently
2. Meetings, ditto
3. Sending phone numbers and other information that is better conveyed written rather than repeated over and over on a voicemail
4. Vcards

[analogika]

5. ANY situation where it is to be assumed that people are at work, but you need to reach them anyway. SMS gives them the option of being reachable/replying at their own leisure. Most adults I know tend to work at least some hours of the day or night.

[voodoo]

And then SMS was replaced by MMS years ago. Apple just never knew.

V

[moonmonkey]

MMS has never been as popular as SMS.

[wallinbl]

Originally Posted by IceEnclosure 

so can I, without predictive text. I'm on a BlackJack. Easy-peasy. And Wallinbl, I spend a lot of time out on the town. I gotta wait till I get home to find out that a hot little latina wants me to pull her panties off with my teeth? not a chance pal.

Originally Posted by Alezone 

SMS comes in handy in situations like these...

1. When you're at a movie
2. When you're at the club with loud music blasting
3. When it's late/early and you're not sure if the person you're trying to contact is awake
4. It's like a pager in the old days, giving the receiver the freedom to reply whenever they feel like.

I average 10 sms a day and maybe 3 calls on my cellie (which wouldn't last more than 5 mins combined)

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

And add to that, here's some more adult situations where SMS is essential:

1. In an office situation where you want information silently
2. Meetings, ditto
3. Sending phone numbers and other information that is better conveyed written rather than repeated over and over on a voicemail
4. Vcards

Originally Posted by analogika 

5. ANY situation where it is to be assumed that people are at work, but you need to reach them anyway. SMS gives them the option of being reachable/replying at their own leisure. Most adults I know tend to work at least some hours of the day or night.

Email solves all of those problems. It's easy enough to get email on your phone (with a full keyboard, no less).

[analogika]

Originally Posted by wallinbl 

Email solves all of those problems. It's easy enough to get email on your phone (with a full keyboard, no less).

It actually solves NONE of those problems, as only two people in my address book has e-mail even configured on his phone, and only one of them has push-e-mail.

All of them have SMS, which is delivered as soon as the phone is in range of a tower, and which supplies me with a receipt, letting me know that the other person got it.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

And then SMS was replaced by MMS years ago. Apple just never knew.

V

Nor does the general public, and those that *are* aware of MMS messaging are rarely aware that their cell phone operator is charging them 60 cents a message.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Nor does the general public, and those that *are* aware of MMS messaging are rarely aware that their cell phone operator is charging them 60 cents a message.

Nonsense, and my operator charges only by kBs sent. Long message, more price, short text and it is cheaper than SMS.

Head out of ass, please.

V

[philm]

Originally Posted by wallinbl 

Email solves all of those problems. It's easy enough to get email on your phone (with a full keyboard, no less).

The crucial difference is the everyone has 'push' SMS already available on their phone, not just the geeks who go through the process of sorting out their e-mail settings (let alone the subset who have push e-mail available). So, the user base for SMS is 100% of a population (in fact, there are more mobile phones than people in some markets) compared to (guesswork) 5% who use e-mail on their phone.

In the UK in March 2007, there were 4.4 billion SMS messages sent. If we assume that these were all sent by people between 14 and 65 (which can't quite be true as my kids (9 and 7) are SMSers), then this means an average of over 100 SMS per month per person. My experience is that this number would be similar in the rest of western Europe and probably lower than this in North America.

[Dakarʒ]

Originally Posted by analogika 

Most adults I know tend to work at least some hours of the day or night.

What are you tryin' to say? That all my friends are on welfare? How dare you.

[alligator]

Maybe I'll have to SMS my kids when they are old enough - other than that, I don't have any friends who use it.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by analogika 

It actually solves NONE of those problems, as only two people in my address book has e-mail even configured on his phone, and only one of them has push-e-mail.

All of them have SMS, which is delivered as soon as the phone is in range of a tower, and which supplies me with a receipt, letting me know that the other person got it.

Indeed. Before e-mail on phones becomes:

1) Ubiquitous
2) Zero-configuration (not EASY configuration, ZERO configuration)
3) Completely transparent with push

it won't replace SMS/MMS.

[moonmonkey]

SMS is the only one that works out of the box, as far as I am aware MMS needs you to go through some annoying online setup procedure to configure the phone, ironically it uses SMS to send you the setup info.

[wallinbl]

Originally Posted by - - e r i k - - 

Indeed. Before e-mail on phones becomes:

1) Ubiquitous
2) Zero-configuration (not EASY configuration, ZERO configuration)
3) Completely transparent with push

it won't replace SMS/MMS.

SMS should have been using email all along. It's ridiculous to have a message history in multiple places. I don't want to guess whether you're at home on email or out on your cell phone. I just want to send a single message and have you get it. I don't want to check SMS and email (and your MySpace page, etc). I just want to check one place. I don't want to screw around with AIM/ICQ/Jabber/etc - email does the same damn thing. It's the digital world's Tower of Babel.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

Nonsense, and my operator charges only by kBs sent. Long message, more price, short text and it is cheaper than SMS.

Head out of ass, please.

V

You're right.

It *used to* be 59 cents in Germany within the cell-network, 99 cents into other carriers' networks. 69 cents in Spain, btw.

T-Mobile Austria currently DOES charge by KB sent - and the price varies from 40 cents to 90 cents per MMS, domestic, with contract, 60 cents to €1,10 pre-paid.

Germany appears to be at 39 cents per MMS, generally.

Head out of ass, please, and realize that Salamanca may be the most wonderful place in the world, but it certainly isn't the *only* place.

How much exactly *do* you pay per MMS?

And please excuse that I didn't go back and add "something like" in front of the 60 cents, as I'd originally intended to do. I decided nobody was going to be anal enough to bitch about that in a post intended to convey that there are hidden costs many aren't aware of.

[IceEnclosure]

I have an unlimited data plan, so I can send a ton of MMS in a month with no additional charges.

and wallinbl, email? please! analogika is right, I've got like three people's email addys on my phone, and it's not set up to push.

Besides, I don't want to try to talk my half naked latina friend through setting up email on her phone. I have AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Mail, Yahoo Mail and GMail all on my computer at home. I check that when I'm home. Out on the town I (and everyone else on the planet) use SMS.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by wallinbl 

SMS should have been using email all along. It's ridiculous to have a message history in multiple places. I don't want to guess whether you're at home on email or out on your cell phone. I just want to send a single message and have you get it. I don't want to check SMS and email (and your MySpace page, etc). I just want to check one place.

SMS and e-mail is not equivalent. SMS is instant while e-mail is not. That's why you don't have to "check" SMS. You just get them. If anything could replace SMS, then it would be instant messaging, but the iPhone does not support that.

Anyway, you won't get everybody to switch away from SMS/MMS to e-mail or IM because the latter two require a $20 data plan to be feasible mobally, while SMS can be used with prepaid phones or 0$/month contracts.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogika 

You're right.

It *used to* be 59 cents in Germany within the cell-network, 99 cents into other carriers' networks. 69 cents in Spain, btw.

T-Mobile Austria currently DOES charge by KB sent - and the price varies from 40 cents to 90 cents per MMS, domestic, with contract, 60 cents to €1,10 pre-paid.

Germany appears to be at 39 cents per MMS, generally.

Head out of ass, please, and realize that Salamanca may be the most wonderful place in the world, but it certainly isn't the *only* place.

How much exactly *do* you pay per MMS?

And please excuse that I didn't go back and add "something like" in front of the 60 cents, as I'd originally intended to do. I decided nobody was going to be anal enough to bitch about that in a post intended to convey that there are hidden costs many aren't aware of.

It varies, if I send a text MMS I pay 10-12 cents, if I send photos, videos or sounds then I pay more. As I said, it is per kB.

SMS is by far the most expensive data sent, as each costs 15 cents no matter if it is just one word or a full SMS.

MMS is more convenient, because you send what you need and you pay for what you send. Not just a flat rate.

As for the insinuation that I'm anal, well as they say. It takes one to know one, eh? Soon enough unlimited data plans will be common and SMS will disappear for good. That's why MMS support in the iPhone is kinda crucial.

Sure the current model will be obsolete much faster that it should have because it isn't 3G, but no MMS support only ensures that it will accelerate that process.

The fact that there is no hardware hindrance to MMS support in the iPhone makes the exclusion of it by Apple all the more curious and stupid IMO.

V

[King Bob On The Cob]

I paid $5/month for unlimited SMSes from Sprint a few years back, and they can't change my contract on me. I send about 500 a month.

I love grandfathering plans :-)

[analogika]

Originally Posted by voodoo 

Sure the current model will be obsolete much faster that it should have because it isn't 3G, but no MMS support only ensures that it will accelerate that process.

The fact that there is no hardware hindrance to MMS support in the iPhone makes the exclusion of it by Apple all the more curious and stupid IMO.

I somehow doubt that you're able to judge it stupid.

Knowing Apple, I suspect it's just the usual tactic of leaving something out until they're actually done with it.

At least, I'm hoping that's what they're doing. There's more than enough proof that they aren't stupid, though.

[Judge_Fire]

Originally Posted by Mithras 

If you're lonely you can always SMS GOOGLE (466453) with something like "translate hello in french"

Or just SMS yourself and see what happens

[IceEnclosure]

Originally Posted by King Bob On The Cob 

I paid $5/month for unlimited SMSes from Sprint a few years back, and they can't change my contract on me. I send about 500 a month.

I love grandfathering plans :-)

Can you MMS and use the 'net on your grandfather'd plan? With handset capabilities and features growing(3G, MP cameras, full internet browsers etc) they're making old grandfather'd plans just old(to me).

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by analogika 

I somehow doubt that you're able to judge it stupid.

Knowing Apple, I suspect it's just the usual tactic of leaving something out until they're actually done with it.

At least, I'm hoping that's what they're doing. There's more than enough proof that they aren't stupid, though.

Peh you assume too much. I said my opinion based on how I perceive things. No judging, as you say I can't judge Apple. I don't know how they reached the conclusion that excluding MMS from the first iPhone model was a good or even reasonable idea.

I'm saying given what I see, it is my opinion that Apple made a stupid error in judgement. They've done it before. DVD vs CD-R in iMacs was one and 'people don't want video on their iPod' was another.

Later corrected. As I'm sure will be the case here. The only excuse I can imagine that absolves Apple in this case is that Apple is very new to the mobile phone business and is a little bit over its collective head right now.

In other words, the current iPhone really is as good as they could make it. Perhaps this is the case. However, in my mind it sounds far more likely that Apple decided rather arbitrarily for 'us' that MMS was a waste of time because you'd use email instead.

Because that's so much more cooler. Or whatever.

I expect MMS support in the first reversion of the iPhone or the first major software update for the iPhone. It's a standard protocol.

Your view of Apple as a corporation is a shade more optimistic than mine. Not that I haven't great faith in them, but rather that I know they have even more faith in themselves. They (not to mention Steve personally) are arrogant enough to think email should just replace MMS and that's the end of it.

Maybe in 5 years, but now.. no.

V

[DigitalEl]

37-years-old... 200+ text messages a month. It's the primary during-the-day way I communicate w/my wife while we're away.

I've sent exactly 0 MMS messages in my life... And received only a handful. They always p!ss me off, b/c I don't get them for free and they're always stupid... Kind of like forwarded e-mail.

I haven't chatted by IM in probably 6 or 7 years. Don't imagine I ever will again. I don't know any adults who have time for that.

[Peter]

SMS is huge in Europe, most definatley isn't dead.

[- - e r i k - -]

Originally Posted by DigitalEl 

I've sent exactly 0 MMS messages in my life... And received only a handful. They always p!ss me off, b/c I don't get them for free and they're always stupid... Kind of like forwarded e-mail.

That might be all fine for you. My fiancé is on the road 95% of the time. We send and receive about 2-3 MMSes per day. Mostly pictures, but also video and sound snippets. I get them instantly, whether or not I am at a computer. My phone is ALWAYS with me so this is a great way to communicate. My family back in Norway can easily send me weekly pictures on how my little niece is growing up as well.

MMS has a lot of uses beyond the reaches of e-mail, it's a folly to rely on your own anecdotes and experiences when you judge the usefulness of a feature.

[alligator]

This assumes everyone has their cell phone with them in their pocket every minute of the day. I keep my cell phone in my bag and almost never take it out because I call using Bluetooth. Maybe this is the reason SMS isn't used very often on my phone.

[IceEnclosure]

Originally Posted by alligator 

This assumes everyone has their cell phone with them in their pocket every minute of the day. I keep my cell phone in my bag and almost never take it out because I call using Bluetooth. Maybe this is the reason SMS isn't used very often on my phone.

[Judge_Fire]

Originally Posted by DigitalEl 

I've sent exactly 0 MMS messages in my life... And received only a handful. They always p!ss me off, b/c I don't get them for free and they're always stupid... Kind of like forwarded e-mail.

Is this having-to-pay-for-receiving thing a US only phenomenon? It really doesn't fit the mindset of the market here and I think it would be a serious deterrent to using SMS, MMS or even making calls.

[voodoo]

Originally Posted by Judge_Fire 

Is this having-to-pay-for-receiving thing a US only phenomenon? It really doesn't fit the mindset of the market here and I think it would be a serious deterrent to using SMS, MMS or even making calls.

I wouldn't use mobile phones if I had to pay for receiving calls or messages. OK I do when I'm roaming, but that's an exception. Doesn't happen all that much because I have SIM cards for the major countries I travel to and from.

V

[IceEnclosure]

There are cellphone plans in the states that are SIMPLY for making and receiving calls. <--NOT POPULAR, Old School.

There are also plans that are for calls and have some-odd number of texting. <--POPULAR, Pretty standard.

There are also plans that have unlimited messaging, and/or data plans for browsing the net and such with more capable phones(which include texting) <-- POPULAR

This thread is occupied by 4 out of the 17 Americans who don't text.