What Apple’s iMessage Does to Text Messaging

What Apple’s iMessage Does to Text Messaging

Here’s Neven Mrgan illustrating what Apple’s iMessage — the new iOS-to-iOS messaging service — did to his text messaging usage:

Note the iOS 5 launch line — that’s when iMessage was introduced.

This matches my experience directly. Almost everyone I message frequently has an iPhone, and my sending of actual text messages has dropped massively. It’s to the point where if I see the green message button/bubble (which signifies text messaging), I’m actually surprised. 90% of what I send uses iMessage’s blue buttom/bubble. iMessage absolutely cannibalizes traditional text messaging usage.

For you BlackBerry users out there, think of iMessage as Apple’s version of BlackBerry Messenger (commonly called BBM).

I love this trend. Not for me alone, but for consumers. As it stands today, wireless carriers price text messaging at astronomical levels, especially considering there’s no magic voodoo involved. It’s old technology at a premium price, and it’s almost all profit for wireless carriers.

iMessage sends information using your plan’s data pipe, and has the added benefit of confirming message delivery and showing when your correspondent is typing.

And it’s free. It can save you money per month. Value add.

If you’re an iPhone user and you haven’t enabled iMessage, you’re missing out on potentially being able to save a few bucks per month by reducing your text messaging plan. To enable iMessage on your iPhone, go to Settings -> Messages -> and flick the iMessage switch to ON. Easy.

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