Here’s Why There’s No IM in the iPhone
by Russell Shaw
I’ve been trying to figure out why Apple’s iPhone, which is due to go on sale tomorrow at 6 p.m. everyone’s local time, has no built-in Instant Messaging software.
Not even iChat, which comes with Macs, nor pre-loaded Yahoo!, AOL IM, or even GoogleTalk from Apple’s longtime ally.
Then I realized why. To place pre-loaded IM on the iPhone would run the risk of cannibalizing the SMS fees that will surely be earned by exclusive U.S. iPhone carrier AT&T Wireless.
Not that there is a comprehensive overlap between IM’ers and texters, but there are enough people who go back and forth between these two forms of mobile messaging that it would be advantageous to carrier income models to force such mobile users into SMS.
After all, with SMS you get the opportunity to charge per-message fees. With mobile IM, the bits you toss about, and are tossed to you, just travel as, and are assessed as data. If you have a decent data plan- all iPhone data plans are unlimited- even numerous and lengthy IM exchanges are not going to result in your carrier sticking it to you for more fees.
In the case of SMS on the iPhone, though, the game changes. Excessive SMS use will result in AT&T Wireless starting to assess per-message fees after 200 SMS’ a month. That’s less than seven a day, but look around you at all the young texters out there. Seven a day would be a slow day for them.
