SMS on iPhone
I’ve got an iPhone (the 3GS). I love it. It’s the most user friendly phone I’ve ever had. In fact, it’ so easy to use that I was a little bit disappointed when I just got it. I was looking forward to a weekend playing around with it to discover all its features at to set it up to my liking , but a couple of hours later, I had seen everything. Way different experience from Symbian (UIQ) where you keep discovering features that are hidden away in some obscure corner of the UI months after you got the phone!. But there are also quite a few stupid niggles with the iPhone (must-resist-writing-about-iPhone4′s-antenna-issue). Today’s topic: the SMS application.
Keyboard
When you enter the SMS app, you see the contact names of people you had SMS conversations with. If you press a name, you see the conversation in a balloon/ bubble type style. Very nicely done. You can type a new SMS by entering text in the text box at the bottom. As soon as you touch it, the on screen keyboard scrolls in from the bottom. Also nice. Sending a new SMS or continuing a conversation takes much less steps than on other phones I have owned; really nicely done! (Dare I say it, magical!, grin). But when the keyboard scrolls into view, it reduces the space available for the bubble view of your conversation dramatically. 
Especially when you are in landscape mode (see screenshot) you mostly can see only one or half of a message. Now there’s nothing much Apple could have done about this, you need the space for the keyboard. If you have to look back at the conversation, you can simple hide the keyboard again, right?
Wrong. Once it’s on the screen, you cannot get rid of it! The only way is leaving the conversation view, go back to the list of contacts and re-enter again (there is a clumsy work around by entering the mode meant to delete messages from the thread too). What’s the deal with this? Surely, a small button for minimizing the keyboard again could be displayed? And if not (the screen is rather full) clicking somewhere in the SMS bubble view above the keyboard should hide it: this is how iPhone messenger programs like eBuddy and IM+ do it. Something that can be made with almost zilch effort and would greatly increase usability but left out because of some mysterious reason.
Character counter
It took Apple ages to include a character counter. Since you pay for each 160 characters while texting via SMS, this is quite basic and every other phone had it. But not the iPhone. In iOS4 Apple finally added it, but not quite like expected.
- First, you have to turn it on manually (Settings->Messages->Character Count). Why? Why on earth is this configurable? And is there any good reason for not having it enabled by default? It would be much more Apple style (less options, easier interface) if they just turned this on by default and remove the configuration setting.
If you have turned in on and start typing an SMS, nothing happens initially. No counter, nothing, nada (see the first screenshot on the right). This makes you wonder if you have done something wrong. So you go back to the configuration screen, look confused as you stare at the 
Character Count option you already turned on, go back to writing the SMS and wonder if this is a bug. Then, as you have entered about 20-30 characters (just as the text box has to expand to the second line), Tah Dah! The counter jumps into place. Sloppy design because the didn’t find a space for the counter if the text box is just 1 line high! One could argue that if the text box is only 1 line high, you don’t have to worry about the message not fitting in one SMS anyway because it’s to short, but still this conflicts with the Character Count configuration option. So please just remove that Apple, thank you!- The counter displays x/160, x being the characters you have
typed so far. Even if you go past the 160 (so you are paying for a second or third SMS), the last part stays at 160 so eventually you get something like 476/160. That’s kind of a weird indication isn’t it? You have to start calculating yourself to see how many SMS’es your message will take and hence what the cost will be. So let me see, if I have typed 476 characters I need to work out this: 2×160=320. I am past that but before 3×160=480, so this will cost me 3 SMS messages. Mmh, how user friendly is that? Again, not very Apply like, I would have expected a simple SMS counter, perhaps combined with a character counter. Something like in the picture on the side. Initially the balloon will show x/1 and as you type on past SMS boundaries it will increase to 2, 3, etc.
Contact with more numbers
Last one: If you have a contact with 2 or more mobile numbers, it’s hard to see to which number you
are sending an SMS when you start typing away in the bubble view: It only shows the name of the contact as stored in the address book on the top of the bubble view. This can be a real issue if for example your contact is abroad and using a local SIM card or phone to reduce cost. If you sent an SMS to that number, it will be much more expensive for you than sending it to the number that is registered in your own country. But in the bubble view, it’s almost impossible to see to which number you are texting. As far as I know, the only option is to scroll to the top of the 
messages in bubble view (which can involve a lot of scrolling if you are not the type that constantly deletes messages). Then on the top, press “Contact Info” (see 1st screenshot), this takes you to the normal contact info page of this person. In this page, the number you are going to send the SMS to is now highlighted in blue (see 2nd screenshot). If you are confident this bubble view was for the right number, you can cancel the contact page and continue typing your SMS. Not very convenient, especially if you have a lot of contacts with multiple numbers.
Since phone numbers are assigned a label anyway, would it really be too much trouble displaying that label on top of the bubble view? Problem fixed. See screenshot on the right!
Apple: You are free to include my design improvements free of charge in the next iOS update! 
