Best iPhone feature? Email instead of MMS

I have a confession to make... As a mobile designer, I hate to deal with the carriers and their telecom networks. I wish their networks would operate just like the web - TCP/IP-based communications from top to bottom. Can you imagine how many more mobile applications we'd have if instead of SMS we had email based SMS - just like in Japan? Or SMS over instant messaging? At the end of the day, SMS is just text. Can you count all the different ways to send and receive text on the Internet? Exactly. So why the hell do carriers have this archaic way of sending TEXT MESSAGES? I think I know... Complacency and Control. Regardless of their attitude, the writing is on the wall:

All carriers will become Internet Serice Providers whether they like it or not.

Can you forsee a future where you don't need six to eight weeks to get a shortcode? Or one in which you can just think of all mobile devices as the IP devices they really are? Or a future in which you don't need to get your application "screened" or "approved" by a carrier? How about a world with no aggregators? Screw SMSC and MMS gateways. How about just plain STMP, Jabber servers and $5.99 domain names at GoDaddy?

So when I read people complaining about the iPhone's lack of MMS I say... bring it on. Why stop there? Get rid of SMS too and provide an IP-base way of sending text messaging and watch this industry's innovation explode.

Until then... Way to go Apple, way to go!

Comments

[Tokeio]

Agreed ^^

Email is way better than MMS and SMS is really just hanging around so providers can charge you 10 cents a message. "But we have a nice $10/month SMS plan!"...

[colin seeger]

Down here in Oz, we've had the joys of the Three network for several years. I've had global on-phone email and web-browsing for two years. Works a treat wherever I get a signal (practically everywhere). When you guys get a 3G network, you'll have a ball. The Motorolla A1000 does most of the things an iPhone does - and has done for almost two years. But you gotta have 3G to see it work. CS

[Måns]

I think you are right - and wrong.

The reason SMS and MMS are such widely used features is the universal standard that they conform to.

When I send a message to a friend, I don't have to know what network he is on, what phone he has, what version of the OS his phone is running, I can just send and he will receive. Across networks, across borders and across manufacturers of phones.

The Internet instant messaging you compare with is a mess! I can't send messages to people on AIM if I have MSN, I can't get Swedish characters to work across Mac/PC always, and the spam - oh the spam.

SMS/MMS are huge successes because they "just work". And I think Apple has made a bad decision not including MMS in the iPhone and I'm pretty sure that will change with the next version.

/M;