iMessage Brings Texting to iPod Touch and iPad Users
Apple today announced iMessage, a new messaging service for iOS 5 users called. The service promises unlimited SMS-esque messaging between iOS users on iPod touch devices, iPhones and iPads. iMessages can be text, photos, videos, locations or include contact data.
If it sounds like BBM, RIM's BlackBerry Messaging service, that's because, well, it sounds a lot like BBM actually -- and increases device lock-in as well. Users of iPads and iPod touch devices will get built-in text and picture messaging, unlimited and free, which is nice for parents who don't want to splurge on an iPhone for little Timmy, but still want him to be able to keep in touch with friends.
For iPhone users, iMessage will be built in to the standard text message window, so using it should be pretty seamless. Other features include group messaging, delivery and read receipts, typing notification and secure encryption. Of course, keeping with the sync via iCloud theme, users will be able to start a conversation on one device and finish it on another. No word yet if iMessage will be included in iChat for OS X Lion as well, but I wouldn't be surprised if it makes an appearance there as well.
Popular Stories
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...
Top Rated Comments
Several of my friends have iPhones or iPads, if I can text them using messaging this instead of SMS it can save me some hard earned cash from ATT :D
Why didn't they just make iMessage the goto messaging app for everything iOS/OSX...just like they did re: video with FaceTime??? Those who still use iChat can carry-on doing so.
As a non-iChat user it would've been excellent getting all msgs that way...with an option to freeze related iOS or OSX device notifications if I happen to be using both devices at the same time and don't want to hear and see duplicate notifications.
Sometimes Apple really surprise me as to their oversights. What they should really do? Offer even PC-users free @me.com email addresses and let them FaceTime and iMessage with all us iOS-users, via free software. What will that do? Encourage them MASSIVELY to buy an iOS device so that their messaging needs are met nice and tidily, at the desktop or when out and about.
I really don't think that having FaceTime and iMessage available on a non-Apple desktop device will reduce sales of Apple's mobile devices, for obvious reasons. Likewise those who buy a Mac buy one for many reasons - FaceTime and iMessage on Windows systems certainly won't stop them from buying a Mac.
1000 "text" messages (SMS, 160 characters max) for 10$ = 0.01$ per message
6 250 000 "data" messages (one gigabyte diveded by 160 characters messages) for 10$ = 0.0000016$ per message
Via SMS: 1 cent equals one message.
Via data: 1 cent equals 6250 messages.
Integrating the service across OSX and iOS is critical, from my POV.
This is my first post so go easy on me
My main concern about iMessage is texting people who have iPod touches and iPads. If the phone can recognise these devices as being registered to someone on you contact list who has a non iOS phone surely it will send the message to the iOS device rather than the phone. I can see this leading to many cases of people waiting for text replies on their phone that never come as they do not check their iPad/iPod for texts??
I hope I made that clear