[stevoyoung]

I think the way they would have gone about with messages/ft alone would have been to continue along their current route. I don't think phone calls and sms messages on your computer was something consumers were banging down the door for. Alternatively, a year from today, I think most people wouldn't be able to "live" with out it.

It's one of those "don't know you love it until you use it" features, like Visual Voicemail. So essentially, I think Apple threw the carriers a bone while making the consumers tied even more to their platform.