SMS has competition; enter New Google Talk for iPhone

05 July 2008

Google has put out a new version of its Google Talk (Gtalk) service for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users, with design improvements that make the service work solely through Safari, the Apple browser, eliminating the need to download and install any software.

According to a blog post from Google mobile team software engineer Adam Connors, all iPhone and iPod Touch users need to do is log on to www.google.com/talk, sign in, start chatting.

According to Gartner estimates, this year around 2 trillion messages would be sent, and most industry analysts say text messaging will boom even more. However, in parallel, a number of companies are realising that the cellphone has somewhat replaced the computer as an internet connectivity tool, which makes it the ideal medium for chat applications.

Fundamental design changes to the humble mobile phone are now seeing wi-fi, GPRS, 3G and other forms of internet connectivity being built in to handsets, with phones like the iPhone at the head of that change. Already, a small faction of analysts is starting to see a competitor to the hugely popular SMS, or texting service, which has the potential to outstrip the latter in growth.

Again, the fundamental difference between text messages and IM's such as Google's Gtalk is not so much in the using, but in the amount the subscriber pays. While service providers continue to charge per text message, usually of 160 charcters, messages sent via Gtalk on the mobile do not have such character limitation, and are practically free to use, barring the minuscule internet access charge, given the number of messages sent.

AT&T subscribers using the iPhone can do just that, and shave a few dollars off their bill each month, by combining GTalk and the integrated free AOL Instant Messenger client to chat with friends rather than pay for the AT&T SMS plan.