Oh, shit. As was rumored earlier today, Apple just announced what could be the death blow to Blackberry: iMessage, a way to securely message between iDevices.
“Our customers have been asking us for a new messaging solution. We’re launching a service that works for all iOS 5 customers. We call it iMessage. It supports iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch,” says Scott Forstall.
You can use it to send text, photos, videos or contacts, even group messages.
We’ve added delivery receipts, and optional read receipts. Typing notifications, so you can see if someone is typing. Pushed to all of your devices, so you can pick up where you left off,” explains Forstall.
Even better, it happens on 3G and WiFi.
This is a serious wake up call to RIM. Their last great advantage just flew out the window: BlackBerry Messaging is unique no longer. Time to evolve or die.
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
45 responses to “Apple Kills BlackBerry With iMessaging [WWDC 2011]”
Hang on a tick. If this works over WiFi, does it circumvent messaging fees (SMS/MMS/etc.) from your carrier? Or am I reading it wrong?
Umm… yeah, a mobile IM client, this is seriously new and revolutionary…
Since it will be using apple server to exchange messages, Do you have to subscribe to Iphone specific phone plan like BB in order to use this ?? or any data connection or wifi will do ?
I dont think this is using your sms message even over 3g. I think its just like BBM and uses data only.
What’s not clear to me is if iMessage integrates the original SMS/MMS all into one app (e.g. the two could be differentiated by the colourization of the conversation bubbles) or is it a stand alone app with the same icon?
Or…does the app automatically identify if the other person has an iMessages capable iPhone and automatically default to the BBM-like service if they do and if they’re not default to SMS for that contact… Would be nice if this were the case…
It also works with wifi :)
Any wifi or 3G connection will do… It’s not like the restricted system of RIM!
Who else thinks this would be even more awesome if it came baked into OS X
When im at home, i spend most of the time working at the computer.
Imagine a little iOS5 style notifications banner along the menu bar, I click it, a little reply box drops down, type my message hit send, all my chat history from the phone is there.
Yeah, it’s all one app. If the person your texting has an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch then the message is automatically sent as an iMessage, if it fails to send as a iMessage you get a message saying “the message failed” with two options to “retry” or “send as text message”
WAIT WAIT WAIT… so it does what whatsapp, ping, liveprofile and the others do… BUT ITS ONLY ON IOS.
sorrry but its ridiculous the amount of hype this has generated just because it’s apple making the app. whatsaapp and the others have been around for years and are cross-OS. but the second apple make a LESSER-VERSION people go fucking mad
You are right, this is Whatsapp and others have been doing, but what is remarkable here is that it is now Apple (and not a humble developer) the one that has spoken up and delivered the “no more rip offs with SMS” message to the carriers.
And it was about time… 6,000% profit on every single SMS, for decades!
I can imagine that one would only be charged the outrageous carrier SMS charges when sending to an non-iMessenger user, but there will be no charges (only the data if you don’t have an unlimited plan) when sending to an iMessenger client.
Any of the developers who currently installed iOS5 want to chime in?
I can imagine that one would only be charged the outrageous carrier SMS charges when sending to an non-iMessenger user, but there will be no charges (only the data if you don’t have an unlimited plan) when sending to an iMessenger client.
Any of the developers who currently installed iOS5 want to chime in?
True, not revolutionary, but a good thing to add none the less.
I know of a few business users that were hanging onto their Blackberry’s simply because of BBM.
Most of what Apple announced couldn’t be classified as “revolutionary”, simply refinements in my opinion.
Hmm. Nice. You played with the dev beta? Would seem from screenshots that iMessages uses blue/white text bubbles and I’d assume that SMS/MMS sticks with the green/white theme. Are the two mixed into one conversation chain? e.g Do you have a blue/white iMessage session with the odd green text bubble mixed in between or are the texts treated as a separate conversation?
Nevertheless hopefully they just have an option to ‘auto send’ the text message if the iMessage fails cause I’d hate to be rear-ended by some fool with fat fingers looking down at his/her lap as they tries to hit ‘retry’ instead of the automobile’s brakes. Lol.
No iv’e seen it but i don’t have it myself, yeah that would be a nice setting, I’m not sure if it’s in there to be honest. But yeah basically like you say iM’s show up as blue bubble’s, normal texts show up green, the send button is also green for texts and blue for iM’s.
The nice thing is they all show up in the same name, so say you have a chat open with a friend all the iM’s and normal texts you send to that person show up in the same window but just different colours with a small “iMessage” in between the changing message types. This video is in Italian but it shows the feature quite well even if you cant understand it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
Good for apple, and all the folks that think this is so great. BBM is so great because it is a seperate app, with its own unique layout, that is pleasing to deal with on a regular basis, not mashed in with all my other txt msgs. Plus we love our physical keyboard.
Isn’t this just ICQ for iDevices? Welcome to the 1990s. :)
It is an IM client that connects all three IOs devices, a phone a tablet and a Music device and there is no need for a data plan, just wifi or ANY 3g network will do… bbm, whatsapp, ping, live profile or anything else that is available are unable do the latter nor the former. That is why it is seriously new and revolutionary. :-)
the whole point is to have it as one, no need for pins, or another profile (facebook, twitter, msn, ichat…do we need more profiles) also it is very cleverly separated and organized, and the iphone has the best layed out and easy t use messaging platform on a phone and thus it is not mashed together, as well physical keyboards are so five years ago..look around you everything from cars to restaurant menu’s are becoming touch screen oriented.
Does it work between handsets like pingchat?
By that I mean, I can ping a blackberry with my iPhone and vice versus.
it requires WIFI or 3G. Whats the useeeee?