Why can’t S60 provide a native threaded SMS experience?

Abril 21st, 2009

Why can't S60 provide a native threaded SMS experience? I am REALLY liking the Nokia E75 (see my first impressions post) and find it to be a super messaging device with the new Nokia Messaging 2.0 software. However, there is one area of messaging that continues to frustrate me and I really wish Nokia would take some time to address the issue. Shoot, with the excellent work done by the recent Twitter application developers maybe one of them can take on this issue and solve it better than Nokia. The issue I am referring to is threaded SMS.

As a father of two teenage daughters and a third getting there, text messaging is something I do quite a bit and am really enjoying as a way to stay in touch with my girls during our busy day. On the iPhone, Windows Mobile devices, BlackBerry devices, and even my T-Mobile G1 I have threaded text messaging. Even the older Palm OS had this capability and actually set the bar with it for years on their Treo devices. I cannot understand why this functionality continues to be skipped by Nokia and am frustrated by this every day. Is threaded SMS something that only Americans prefer or am I missing something here?

Nokia did release the Conversation application on Nokia Beta Labs back in September of 2007. I actually do have this on my E75 and am using it, but I figured if they had it here in 2007 they surely could have integrated it into the OS and improved it since that time. While Conversation does give you a basic threaded SMS experience, it is a separate application and does not integrate into the native text messaging client so you need to launch it as a stand alone app. It does appear as a tab in the Contacts application so there is some integration. I personally have it setup as a Standby screen shortcut. Unfortunately, there is no S60 5th Edition support for my Nokia 5800 yet.

I read about another 3rd party client that looks very promising called iSMS, but it is an unsigned application that requires you to hack your device or sign it yourself for each phone you want to use it on. Ricky Cadden has a good tutorial on the signing process and I plan to try it out soon because I really want a better threaded SMS experience. The signing process looks fairly straightforward, but it really is a shame that users have to go through such a process just to get an application to make their device perform a function that every other mobile operating system now performs out of the box.

Anyone else desire a good threaded SMS experience? Anyone have feedback on using iSMS?