Apple's free iMessage expected to undermine carriers' high-profit SMS business

13567

Comments

  • Reply 41 of 138
    deepdeep Posts: 13member
    Unless I'm reading this wrong, the article states iOS 5 is arriving on Tuesday the 12th but the 12th is Wed, right? Apple said the 12th didn't they?
  • Reply 42 of 138
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by NasserAE View Post


    Except the iPad and iPod touch.



    almost as ridiculous as google+ not supporting ipod touch
  • Reply 43 of 138
    irnchrizirnchriz Posts: 1,616member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by chriscaskey View Post


    I keep seeing this every time I open mail, just installed the new Mac OS 10.7.2



    Possibly 'message' coming to Lion? Or just something I've missed? Someone may know something..







    Your growl mail plugin is out of date. You can download the patcher from growl mail which will allow it to run.



    You need the UUID patcher http://code.google.com/p/growlmail/d...r.zip&can=2&q=
  • Reply 44 of 138
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Yuniverse View Post


    Our family has 5 lines on AT&T. We lowered the plan to 700 min. Between 5 lines, i know that sounds too little, but we also added $30 unlimited texting which covers all 5 lines ($6 per line for unlimited texting), but the kicker is that you get unlimited mobile minutes from ANY carriers.

    Most people use mobile phones now days, so I thought this would be a good plan. What do you guys think?



    I guess this is one way for carriers (in this case AT&T) to lure customer to texting plan.



    I already had the unlimited Data, Minutes and Text, So I talked to AT&T, about dropping Unlimited Minutes to 700 Minutes and all I was going to save was $40.00 a month, plus I call a lot of landlines and they eat up your minutes so not worth it for me.
  • Reply 45 of 138
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Yuniverse View Post


    Our family has 5 lines on AT&T. We lowered the plan to 700 min. Between 5 lines, i know that sounds too little, but we also added $30 unlimited texting which covers all 5 lines ($6 per line for unlimited texting), but the kicker is that you get unlimited mobile minutes from ANY carriers.

    Most people use mobile phones now days, so I thought this would be a good plan. What do you guys think?



    I guess this is one way for carriers (in this case AT&T) to lure customer to texting plan.



    I did the exact same thing as you. We had the 1400 minute plan and lowered it to 700. I was worried about going over, but my last bill showed that we only used 205 minutes on 4 lines and we've already accumulated something like 4000 rollover minutes, which would cover us for any overages (but we haven't come close to it yet). I guess we call a lot more mobile phones than I thought and I never give a second thought about using my phone worrying we'll go over.
  • Reply 46 of 138
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Cash907 View Post


    I just did the same thing. We were at 2100 minutes, but with unlimited nights and weekends, the A List, free AT&T mobile to mobile (now All mobile to mobile) we were hardly putting a dent in that limit. I figure even if we do go over during the holidays, the surplus of 13,000 rollover minutes we've racked up should keep us out of overage territory. Heck, in the last billing cycle, the total talk time for all 5 lines was something like 350 minutes, which just a few years ago wouldn't have been enough for even my wife's line. Text usage, on the other hand... yeah I don't even look at that anymore. Even though it's unlimited, it still blows me away just how many texts we rack up in a 30 day period.



    Unless it's changed in the past few months, bear in mind that when you switch to a new plan, you lose all of your accumulated rollover minutes except for an amount equal to your new plan. So if you went from 13,000 rollover minutes on a 2100 minute plan to a 700 minute plan, you'll only have 700 rollover minutes.



    I lost something like 9,000 rollover minutes, but the free mobile to any mobile saves me so many minutes, I've quickly built back up to a ton of rollover minutes.
  • Reply 47 of 138
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    An SMS message offers the user the ability of sending short bursts of text of up to 160 characters. Report author Jenna Wortham noted that, at rates as high as 20 cents per sent and received message, a user would end up paying $1,500 to send 1MB of text data. The same amount of data costs just 1.25 cents on a $25 per month 2GB data plan.



    What an insanely stupid comparison.



    Who in the world would spend $1500 on sending 1 MB of text data? AT&T offers unlimited texting for something like $20 a month for the entire family on family plan.



    Now, if the only people you are texting are iPhone users, then maybe you could drop the texting plan, but in reality that's unlikely to be the case. So you will probably still have to have your text messaging plan in place - and won't really save any money (at least not until there's a way to integrate this with SMS).
  • Reply 48 of 138
    Somebody answer this: Is it free between iOS users OR is it free between iOS 5 users.



    Big difference if the latter. My boss has iOS 3 on his 3G and probably will for life.
  • Reply 49 of 138
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleZilla View Post


    Somebody answer this: Is it free between iOS users OR is it free between iOS 5 users.



    Big difference if the latter. My boss has iOS 3 on his 3G and probably will for life.



    Presumably you mean for the life of the phone, not the life of your boss Because yes, it'll be for iOS 5, which won't go onto a 3G even if he wanted it to. He'll need to upgrade the handset.
  • Reply 50 of 138
    How much data is iMessage likely to eat up. If it's just texting, so no MMS would you expect it to be pretty much unnoticeable?



    I have the option between a £15 month plan with texts/mins and 1GB of data or £25 with same mins/texts and unlimited data.
  • Reply 51 of 138
    reganregan Posts: 474member
    The writing...er I mean texting is on the wall. IMessage is just the latest salvo against such outrageous pricing by the telecom companies.



    IMessage like facetime will be cool between Apple users(which is what I am)...but i actually use Yahoo Messenger to send and recieve FREE SMS messages to all my friends non apple cell phones. I use this all the time. It's really great and FREE.



    With things like yahoo messenger, twitter and now iMessage...why would anyone willingly pay $20 to AT&T for unlimited texting? Ha! What a joke. Or .20cents per text? Even MORE of a joke. When you could text for free. Why would anyone hand over their hard earned money to these greedy telcom companies who are charging a 4,000% mark up from what sending a text really costs them?



    It's not like you have to hack/jailbreak your device or something. There are plenty of FREE alternatives.
  • Reply 52 of 138
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lordoftheflatbush View Post


    So Whatsapp should sue Apple for stealing their app



    And RIM should sue Whatsapp for stealing theirs...
  • Reply 53 of 138
    I think it's great that Apple is starting this, but if every company has their own messaging service and none of them are cross platform then the wireless carriers are still going to get away with the ridiculous texting plans they have. This would be a great chance for some cooperation between Apple, Google and Microsoft to effectively kill text message price gouging.
  • Reply 54 of 138
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post






    The New York Times reports that the forthcoming service is being perceived as a threat to mobile operators.



    ...





    However, Apple devices only account for 5 percent of texting traffic each year,






    Somehow, ISTM that even if all the iDevices suddenly stopped using SMS services (which ain't ever gonna happen), 5% is not much of a "threat".



    The stats show that iOS device owners send an average amount of text messages: iOS has about 5% of the phone market, and their owners send about 5% of text traffic.
  • Reply 55 of 138
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Neves View Post


    ... i don't even understand the concept of unlimited nights and weekends.....hope this solves my issue...





    My guess is that it will not solve your issues. They strike me as more fundamental than choice of software.
  • Reply 56 of 138
    conradjoeconradjoe Posts: 1,887member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Apple ][ View Post


    A lot of Blackberry users are running away from RIM. They know that they're on a dead end platform with no future, so they have to make a choice and quite a few of them are ending up on iOS.



    Extrapolating from the recent stats, less than a third of them are going to iOS. More than twice as many seem to be headed to Android.
  • Reply 57 of 138
    I just don't see this gaining that much traction since it only talks to other iOS (5) devices. You're still going to need to send and receive texts from people who aren't on iOS so the vast majority of people who do texting are still going to need to pay for a texting plan. I guess in some cases going to a cheaper text plan could save a bit of cash, but ATT only offers all or none, and with other companies I suspect many people are on the cheapest one anyway and the difference between the cheapest and the next one up isn't much. And having no texting plan doesn't stop incoming texts unless you specifically have them blocked (assuming all the companies support that).



    This just seems like facetime all over again - stuff like this doesn't get used unless it can connect with EVERYONE, not just Apple users. Will they update this to connect with all phones at some point or just leave it to die like all the other proprietary Apple tech?
  • Reply 58 of 138
    christophbchristophb Posts: 1,482member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post


    I just don't see this gaining that much traction since it only talks to other iOS (5) devices. You're still going to need to send and receive texts from people who aren't on iOS so the vast majority of people who do texting are still going to need to pay for a texting plan. I guess in some cases going to a cheaper text plan could save a bit of cash, but ATT only offers all or none, and with other companies I suspect many people are on the cheapest one anyway and the difference between the cheapest and the next one up isn't much. And having no texting plan doesn't stop incoming texts unless you specifically have them blocked (assuming all the companies support that).



    This just seems like facetime all over again - stuff like this doesn't get used unless it can connect with EVERYONE, not just Apple users. Will they update this to connect with all phones at some point or just leave it to die like all the other proprietary Apple tech?



    I'm in a wait and see mode on how this will impact my messaging plan. I think most of mine go to IOS users so going to a pay-per could make sense. I do know one thing - I won't be frustrated anymore with my parents sending a message then 5 typo corrections in 5 different messages.
  • Reply 59 of 138
    tulkastulkas Posts: 3,757member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by minderbinder View Post


    I just don't see this gaining that much traction since it only talks to other iOS (5) devices. You're still going to need to send and receive texts from people who aren't on iOS so the vast majority of people who do texting are still going to need to pay for a texting plan. I guess in some cases going to a cheaper text plan could save a bit of cash, but ATT only offers all or none, and with other companies I suspect many people are on the cheapest one anyway and the difference between the cheapest and the next one up isn't much. And having no texting plan doesn't stop incoming texts unless you specifically have them blocked (assuming all the companies support that).



    This just seems like facetime all over again - stuff like this doesn't get used unless it can connect with EVERYONE, not just Apple users. Will they update this to connect with all phones at some point or just leave it to die like all the other proprietary Apple tech?



    People used to buy BB's just to get BBM because their friends and associates were using BBM. Apple doesn't need iMessage to sell more iPhones but it certainly won't hurt. As more people buy iOS devices, the more useful this becomes, the more people will buy iOS devices to stay connected, just as RIM benefited from BBM. But, RIM was dependent on BBM as a key selling point, where for Apple it is not nearly as important, yet.



    Apple doesn't need iMessage to become a roaring success. iMessage simply becomes a nice extra for iOS users. And for a lot of iOS users, many/most of the people they text are also iOS users. I'd estimate that for me, 80% of the people I text use iPhones. Those on BB or Android, I can just use another IM app or email. trying to avoid carrier texting is very common. This just makes it a little easier for some.
  • Reply 60 of 138
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Crowley View Post


    Presumably you mean for the life of the phone, not the life of your boss Because yes, it'll be for iOS 5, which won't go onto a 3G even if he wanted it to. He'll need to upgrade the handset.



    That doesn't answer my question, which is.



    If I am on an iPhone with iOS 5 and someone else is on iOS 4, are messages I send or receive to/from them free? Or do we both have to have iOS 5. Or what?
Sign In or Register to comment.