In the wake of Apple’s iMessage, Android is reportedly working on its own free messaging service. Could 2011 be the year that SMS starts to wither and die?
Texting, originally known as Short Message System when the service started in 1985, is a golden goose for carriers. Texting was a $25 billion service in the U.S. and Canada during 2010. Every dollar consumers spend on texting equates to 80 cents of profit for companies such as AT&T or Verizon, according to UBS analysts. That compares with just 35 cents of profit for every $1 spent on voice calls or a data plan.
Monday, Apple announced iMessage, a component of the unreleased iOS 5 update which will allow texting between iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch owners similar to BlackBerry Messaging. Now comes word that Android will offer a similar service, reports the Wall Street Journal.
During the second half of 2010, carriers saw the slimmest gains in texting use since the practice caught fire about a decade ago. Although more than 1 trillion texts were sent and received during the last six months of last year, that was just 8.7 percent above the first half of 2010, according to the wireless trade group CTIA.
That single-digit growth of texting is a mirror-image of the explosive increase in app-based texting. An outlier of this can be seen in the Netherlands, where carrier KPN in April 2011 reported an 85 percent jump in the use of the free Android-based WhatsApp from 0 percent in August of 2010. In the U.S., apps such as Skype are propelling the of Internet-based messaging.
Noting the shift, carriers both hope for messaging apps to increase data plan revenue as well as fight a rear-guard battle against the inevitable. An AT&T senior vice president told the Journal texting will survive, because it allows people to send messages no matter what brand of device the recipient uses.
What it all comes down to is this: the major players are all baking in their own free messaging systems
into their mobile operating systems. Pretty soon, SMSing will be something you do only when you aren’t on the same smartphone platform as a friend or family member… and when that happens, companies like Apple and Google will have just one more incentive to lock you in for life.
What do you think? Will you be able get rid of your SMS plan in favor of iMessage? Let us know in the comments.
Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.
62 responses to “Android’s Going To Help Apple’s iMessage Kill Off SMS With Own Messaging Platform”
No, because I have contacts that use iOS, Android, Blackberry and probably a lot of feature phones.
Problem is we’re all being locked into different protocols. Why can’t they just implement Jabber?
Pretty sure this is call GTalk, has been integrated into android since 1.5?
Isn’t carrier controlling Android more then Google itself? So can’t Carriers just refuse to update Android?
The only caveat of those messaging systems it’s that all of them are non interoperable… Blackberry Messenger, WhatsApp, Kik Messenger, Beluga, an now Apple’s iMessage all only works in order to talk between their users…
it would require teen girls to switch but yes it could a similar outlook to this
Yes I will move to iMessage and keep the cheapest text allowance for people outside of iOS
If SMS/MMS dies then the Carriers will have to huddle up and figure out a new way to rape your wallet…which ironically in 2012 will be your NFC-equipped phone. Awkward. Lol.
SMS won´t die soon, at least in third world countries, which means millions and millions of users who just can´t afford and iPhone or Android, instead they just can buy cheap prepaid phones at 40 dollars. And that service is just for calls and SMS, no internet.
I believe that in the future all systems will be integrated and we’ll talk to each other. We’re just going to pay for the connection.
This has shades of IM platform wars written all over it and
the end result could very well be the same.
With IM, people eventually got tired of the fragmented
mess of AIM, vs. ICQ, v. Yahoo, v. Google and they moved on (to text and
facebook). SMS plans will still be the
standard as long as everyone else thinks no bigger than their own little walled
gardens. Communication standards need to
be cross platform to become ubiquitous.
What is there to stop iMessage or any other private messaging service from adding all platform support…so long as there is some form of ID that other platforms could sign up for.
Yup. Google Talk is basically Android’s BBM. Hence why I’m pissed that Apple still doesn’t have an official IM client for the iPhone (the Talk client on Google’s platform is basically its one true killer app). And hence why this new report makes zero sense.
Again, ask Apple, because Google has effectively embraced a fairly open chat protocol already.
I’d love to ditch SMS but there are at least two problems ..1) contacts who don’t have smartphones, 2) the carriers pricing structure means that you have to have some sort of SMS plan, no matter how few carrier based messages you might send/receive.
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I hope the networks of iMessage and whatever the android option is link up. Wouldn’t that be awesome?
Same with Facetime (although there isn’t really a standard video chat network for android)
ANY closed sstem is horrible and shuld never be celebrated. Why anybody in their right mind would think BBM or iMessage are good features is beyond me. Both terrible, terrible features. The future HAS to be open, not closed.
Ironic that Steve Jobs critisises Android for being fragmented, when Apple itself is fragmenting with this and Facetime.
Good for Apple, awful for consumers.
There is a cross platform messenger service available for smart devices; including iDevice, Android, windows mobile 6 and soon seven. It is mentioned in the article. Skype! It works great, and even has video conferencing!
does the iphone really need im messaging
Ever heard of something called GTalk? It’s been out for a while now…..
Jabber, which more precisely should be referred to as XMPP is a protocol supported by iChat; is the protocol used on Mac OS X Server’s iChat server, is the protocol used for initiating FaceTime calls and I would imagine is what will drive iMessage. Although, Apple chose to use AOL’s Oscar protocol for MobileMe IM, XMPP is very much baked into many Mac OS X services.
There is Google Voice, which lets you text anyone for free. That covers both Google users and all other phone numbers
Judging by the amount of people buying blackberrys just to get BBM it’s obviously quite a big feature
I agree. This reminds me of the desktop IM fragmentation of ten years ago.
I got rid of my texting plan 8 months ago for google voice, not to mention gmail and gtalk.
skype is terrible and slow and buggy.
We just need a way to text non-smartphone users from within the app and that will be the beginning of the end for SMS.
Whatsapp. Enough said.
No. You’re going to still need SMS to send and receive messages in poor data coverage or when the network is overloaded and data is slow to connect.
While the rest of the world pays 2 cents for outgoing SMS messages only, incoming is free, we’re paying 20 cents x 2 a text like idiots because we’re letting the telecom companies have their way with us. While other countries charge for the data, US is the only country that charges for the opportunity to communicate. Did I mention people don’t pay for incoming calls on a cell phone too? What a concept. Wait it should have always worked like that. Makes perfect sense now. Duh.
I think the best thing would be for Google/Apple/MS to come out with a unified system, killing off RIM finally and for good.
So… what kind of features does iMessage/BBM/whatevers offer that you cant get as a free app in the form of AIM, YM, GoogleTalk, or MSN, etc?