More on Avoiding Mobile Carriers

I forgot to mention text messaging in my earlier post commenting on John Gruber’s iPhone 4 review. Read that before this.

It would be great if the standard iPhone Messages app would send messages over WiFi when possible. O2 charges me 10p per message, which can really add up. I should think it is needless to say that I would also like to be able to receive new messages via Apple’s push notification service.

I don’t know the details of sending and receiving text messages using an email address, but I am pretty sure there would not be too many technical hurdles in putting the Messages app on iPod Touch, with full interoperability with normal mobile phones.

If I have Airplane mode enabled (turning off the cellular network radio) but WiFi on, my iPhone is like and iPod Touch and there is no obstacle to the exchange of data between the device and the Internet. There should be no limitations on the services available.

Femtocells, or microcells: an outrageous scam. I am truly angry about the existence of these things. Apple is doing a service to us all in breaking down the control, and working around the backwards approach, of the mobile network operators. What I am saying here is that I hope, even dream, that they can take this further.