iMessage and instant messages deserve different apps

11.04.2012
It’s been almost two months since , the revamped version of iChat slated to arrive with Mountain Lion this summer. And, thanks to a lack of subsequent updates, I and at least a few of my colleagues have jumped ship back to our pre-Messages IM clients. Those who haven’t, well, I’ve noticed they seem to spend a lot of time cursing at Messages.

In the vein of our fearless leader Jason Snell’s recent point that , I think the company might want to reconsider the direction it’s heading in with Messages in , in particular with the integration of iMessage.

It’s not that I don’t want the ability to send and receive iMessages from my Mac. There’s an undeniable convenience to having a single way to reach me, no matter which device I’m using. But at the same time, I think that cramming that functionality into Messages is just slightly off—call it sticking a round peg into an oval-shaped hole.

On the face of things, instant messaging and text messaging are technologies that seem pretty similar: They both involve sending text and images over a network to a conversation partner or partners. Then again, you could say the same thing about instant messaging and email, and I think many of us would look askance at having our email accounts folded into Messages—or, for that matter, iMessage incorporated into Mail. So why do iMessage and IM need to occupy the same space?

Texting is an inherently permissive system, much as we might often wish it weren’t. Give someone your phone number and you’ve implicitly allowed them to send you text messages as well. And while it’s all too common to screen calls, there’s often no easy, standardized way to block someone from sending you text messages or revoke their ability to text you, short of the nuclear option of changing your phone number. Some carriers do allow you to block messages from specific numbers, but it usually isn’t managed from your phone itself, and, in the case of AT&T, it requires .