SMS the iPhone way

With the iPhone getting well over 69 million hits in Google, it is surprising that there is very little discussion on how it deals with SMS texting. Surprising because the iPhone is well a mobile phone. It also does not have a physical keypad. And just as importantly, it processes and presents messages that can be considered a radical departure from the familiar sequential listings in the Inbox, Sent, Log screens established by Nokia.

The iPhone designers are obviously aware that many users often go into texting conversations on the phone, kinda similar to IM chats. So they decided to organize these texting conversations into speech bubbles that can be scrolled back for reference instead of the usual separate Inbox and Sent listings. In addition, mutiple text chats can be stored (by contact name) so that you resume a chain.

This UI will definitely help avid PC IM users transition into text chat on the phone, rather on the iPhone. The question though is just how good is the QWERTY virtual keyboard? I haven't had the chance to do a hands-on but I doubt very much if it can provide a tactile feedback that is often required by users. Personally I feel the keyboard issue will either make or break the iPhone as a mobile phone.