SMS Apps on the iPhone Have a Lot to Learn From Twitter Clients

Thursday, 14 October 2010

SMS apps on the iPhone — namely the original Messages.app, biteSMS and iRealSMS — are all following the same principles.

Text messages are part of a conversation between the user and his recipient. Messages sent to a single person are grouped in a single view, the oldest on top.

While I do not question this principle, I firmly disagree with the reply form. The text field used to reply fills only ⅙^th of the screen at its maximum: ⅓ of the height and ½ of the width. What a waste of space.

On the other hand, nearly all Twitter clients now sport a large text field. It allows the user to feel more at ease, less restrained. I mean, I suffocate looking at this tiny space when texting.

What is ironic here is that tweets are limited to 140 characters, no matter what. SMSes, on the other hand, are not limited. It is not unusual to send an 8-pieces SMS from time to time.

Why then do I have to suffer such a tiny text field? I suggest that developers of these apps start re-thinking their UI & UX.