I find the idea of a minimal UI with intelligent agents working behind the curtain very intriguing. I also like the idea pf SMS as a channel input device for using such apps.
The line of thinking seems to be: Africa and Asia leapfrogged the desktop / laptop generation of computing and directly went for mobile. The younger generation in the Western world essentially is mobile-first. Apart from work (and even that might change for many job descriptions in the future) even most people in traditionally first-world countries don't even use desktop computers anymore. Hence, what we see in Africa and Asia right now essentially also is the future for Western countries.
In general, I think this is spot on. However, I also think many people get overly excited by the promises and possibilities of messaging apps. SMS-based apps in particular often are makeshift solutions for when there's no reliable Internet connectivity all the time but somewhat reliable cellular coverage.
The bus information example is a particularly good example of this. Sure, it's useful but many of the improvements mentioned in the article like linking to a specific resource for a specific bus line for easier future use can already be implemented today in websites. There's no reason why I couldn't use a mobile browser instead of a message app for accessing this kind of information. The problem is that most websites - public transport websites being a particularly notorious example - often are terrible from a UX point of view: User interfaces are needlessly complex and often barely usable at all.
Perhaps, the takeaway from this article also is that when designing websites and web-based UX we can learn a lot from the simpler interactions on mobile devices. Good design is all about embracing constraints. Perhaps applying those constraints from mobile messaging to designing websites is a good idea, too.
A lot of people who read this post a few months latched too tightly onto the idea that SMS is somehow always a better interaction model than a UI. It's not. But there's a time and place where SMS is just the right way to notify someone or communicate with someone about something: http://whoo.ps/2015/05/27/what-sms-is-good-for
I don't know how it is on other networks, but SMS as a real-time communications channel is useless on Sprint. About 10% of all of my SMS take 15+ minutes to deliver.
To friends or business related texts? The short code system is a different system from the P2P. So any business should have better or different latency and deliverability than what you're describing.
Out of curiosity, why are you still with your carrier if they are performing that poorly?
I am looking at switching, contract is up this fall. My wife uses a 32GB iPhone, so switching will be expensive hardware-wise for her ($150/$550 depending on contract/no-contract for 5s).
[edit]
Also, I have no reason to believe that the overall experience will be better with any of the other carriers. At this point I'm shopping completely on price as I have no reliable data that one carrier is better than another in my area.
The line of thinking seems to be: Africa and Asia leapfrogged the desktop / laptop generation of computing and directly went for mobile. The younger generation in the Western world essentially is mobile-first. Apart from work (and even that might change for many job descriptions in the future) even most people in traditionally first-world countries don't even use desktop computers anymore. Hence, what we see in Africa and Asia right now essentially also is the future for Western countries.
In general, I think this is spot on. However, I also think many people get overly excited by the promises and possibilities of messaging apps. SMS-based apps in particular often are makeshift solutions for when there's no reliable Internet connectivity all the time but somewhat reliable cellular coverage.
The bus information example is a particularly good example of this. Sure, it's useful but many of the improvements mentioned in the article like linking to a specific resource for a specific bus line for easier future use can already be implemented today in websites. There's no reason why I couldn't use a mobile browser instead of a message app for accessing this kind of information. The problem is that most websites - public transport websites being a particularly notorious example - often are terrible from a UX point of view: User interfaces are needlessly complex and often barely usable at all.
Perhaps, the takeaway from this article also is that when designing websites and web-based UX we can learn a lot from the simpler interactions on mobile devices. Good design is all about embracing constraints. Perhaps applying those constraints from mobile messaging to designing websites is a good idea, too.