While reading a recent Techcrunch piece on Blipr (free iPhone app that enables messaging with other iPhone users), I couldn’t help but fear for the fate of the humble text message as we know it. If we can safely assume that handsets like iPhones are the future (surely in four or five years time they’ll be as everyday as colour screens on mobiles are now), then it’s only a matter of time before everyone has a mobile device with extensive app options for messaging via the internet connection of their device, rather than using more expensive SMS options.
Whatsmore, even if the cost of using the SMS format falls – it still seems unlikely that it could compete with the much cheaper cost of using apps like Blipr, especially considering that the latter offers far more extensive functionality and features, which sadly leaves the SMS format looking outdated and with a limited expected lifespan.
Blipr for example offers such a range of other multimedia options (you can include short audio or sound effects in your messages) that it seems the SMS, with its text-only capability, pales in comparison. Of course, there will no doubt be a lengthy period of time before such devices become the norm (iPhones are still costing a hefty £450 in the UK these days…), and we still send millions of texts every year here in the UK at the moment – but looking at the long game it seems inevitable that in a decade’s time we’ll look back on the SMS with the fondness we now associate with a Super Nintendo, VHS tapes or the Nokia 5190…
Dejan Levi