iMessage, announced at this year’s WWDC keynote, is an intriguing new feature that will allow users of any iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch running the new OS to send SMS-like messages back and forth for free. No mention, however, has been made of it coming to OS X Lion. A new mockup has been circulating, however, showing what an OS X version of iMessage might be like.
iMessage is a very interesting concept that not only expands on traditional SMS messages (by offering read receipts, notification when someone is responding to you, etc.), but also brings the ability to send and receive the messages to and from devices that don’t have cellular connections. While nothing has officially been mentioned, many have wondered whether iMessage might come to OS X Lion, either on its own, or as a component of FaceTime or iChat. The above mockup (by Jan-Michael Cart) illustrates what an end solution might be like.
While it’s still possible that iMessage support could come to Lion when it is released, or perhaps later this fall (Apple could be waiting for iOS 5 to be released before making a move like this, which sort of makes sense), nobody knows for sure, and so far nobody has yet found a good indication that it will be included in Lion. Nevertheless, take a look at the below video clip showing how a possible OS X implementation might work:
The concept is very interesting, and I certainly hope that Apple decided to do something to unify FaceTime, iChat, and iMessage – it seems as though they’d just work better and smoother if they were able to work together.
What are your thoughts?
