Ben Brooks of The Brooks Review comments on MG Siegler’s remarks about iMessage:
MG Siegler:
And again, while this may be iOS-only, guess who else is going to have to match this feature now? Android. SMS is about to become a cross-platform messaging platform only.
I hadn’t thought about that, iMessage will have a big impact in the mobile world. Especially because, as Siegler notes, it is built into the current SMS app and defaults to iMessage with SMS being a backup only (or so I hear).”
When reading both of them the obvious question is: Will it really? Will it really have a have a big impact in the mobile world? Will a one platform messaging service really gain any traction? How is that working out for Facetime?
I see that John Gruber of Daring Fireball has enough iPhone-using friends to cancel his SMS plan as soon as this launches. First of all, I haven’t got an SMS plan. I have unlimited text messages as a non optional part of my subscription. Also, and more importantly, most of my friends are still on old candy bar phones. I have noticed a worrying reluctance among Modern Culture graduates to engage in frivolous digital pursuits. Most of them have finally given in to the global group pressure of Facebook but Twitter still holds no apparent purpose to them and smart phones are not worth the investment. I mean really!
