It's a seamless experience. Apple doesn't typically innovate on the actual technical software implementation. iMessage at a basic level is very simple. It's the integration in the platform. It's the fact that I do not need to know someone's email address to talk to them on gtalk. Also, what if you don't have a gmail address? Many people do not.
I type a phone number in, begin sending a message, and that seamless/transparent handshake occurs in the background where the device I am about to message tells me it's an iOS device supporting iMessage. I don't need to change the way I use my device.
You don't need to use Google Talk or have a gmail address to use XMPP. It's just another implementation of an existing standard.
I don't think that I need handholding from a protocol to the extent that it saves me from putting their chat address in my address book. If I don't know it, I can text them and ask:)
I don't ask their home number to automatically give me their work number.
It seems all that iMessage really does is enable users to discover connectivity through an alternative means and enable communication through that means. There's no reason you couldn't use the same mechanism to discover a JID/XMPP ID.
Well said. Just like facetime vs video chatting apps. Facetime is a natural extension to the phone functionality, something everybody is familiar with and using on a daily basis already.
thats only because its the default app that apple uses third party developers test to see if users are interested, the creates their own version and makes it the default on their phones.
Comments
It's a seamless experience. Apple doesn't typically innovate on the actual technical software implementation. iMessage at a basic level is very simple. It's the integration in the platform. It's the fact that I do not need to know someone's email address to talk to them on gtalk. Also, what if you don't have a gmail address? Many people do not.
I type a phone number in, begin sending a message, and that seamless/transparent handshake occurs in the background where the device I am about to message tells me it's an iOS device supporting iMessage. I don't need to change the way I use my device.
You don't need to use Google Talk or have a gmail address to use XMPP. It's just another implementation of an existing standard.
I don't think that I need handholding from a protocol to the extent that it saves me from putting their chat address in my address book. If I don't know it, I can text them and ask:)
I don't ask their home number to automatically give me their work number.
It seems all that iMessage really does is enable users to discover connectivity through an alternative means and enable communication through that means. There's no reason you couldn't use the same mechanism to discover a JID/XMPP ID.
Well said. Just like facetime vs video chatting apps. Facetime is a natural extension to the phone functionality, something everybody is familiar with and using on a daily basis already.
thats only because its the default app that apple uses third party developers test to see if users are interested, the creates their own version and makes it the default on their phones.