Using Kik. (Photo: Hashgram)

The inevitable tween regime has further secured its reign with the news that more and more messages are being sent via chat apps, eclipsing SMS for the first time. According to important new research, more than 19 billion texts are sent every day on apps such as iMessage, WhatsApp and others, compared to 17.6 billion SMS messages.

The stats are likely giving telco companies a reason to quiver. Informa estimates that the companies make $120 billion yearly from texting, but the rapidly growing sector apps could endanger that figure. By the end of 2013, the number of messages sent on the “over the top” programs are estimated to double to 40 million. Meanwhile, SMS messages are only expected to rise two billion during the same period.

Of course, the major reason people are beginning to prefer apps like MessageMe is because they're entirely free, with no cost to download or send messages. On average, users send 33 messages per day on the apps, compared to just five SMS messages.

Ted Livingston, the chief executive of tween-favorite Kik, told Financial Times that he is already starting shiva for texting plans:

“I think killing text messaging is going to be inevitable as people switch to [mobile] data plans...If I can get something that is just as good for free, rather than paying for it, I’ll probably take it for free.”

Let’s see how true that holds when his investors start whispering about monetization.

Not blessed.

Don't be alarmed, but Apple's iMessage and FaceTime are both experiencing difficulties. According to the company’s support page, “some users being affected" by problems with the messaging platforms.

We tested to see if we were some of the users "being affected," and it turns out to be true. Our texts were delivered in as the green-colored SMS instead as blue-hued iMessages. At least iMessage obsessives can be assured their whines were heard: "My iMessge" is currently trending on Twitter in the U.S.

Your actual voice remains unaffected, so feel free to kvetch to the nearest human until it's back online.

(Photo via Flickr.)

The technology behind iMessage, Apple's built-in chat service, is so complex that not even our nuclear-armed government can crack it. According to an internal memo issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration, and obtained by CNET, the government agency conceded that it can’t hack into the heavily encrypted software thus making it “impossible to intercept iMessages” between Apple devices.

According to the February memo, classified as “law enforcement sensitive," an investigation conducted by the DEA used a federal wiretap court order to enact real-time surveillance on the suspects. However, they noticed that not every message was being captured and figured out that the suspects were using iMessage. The DEA said only Apple’s iMessages are producing problems for the agency, and not your retro, green-hued SMS text

When Apple introduced iMessage in June 2011, it heralded the platform's heavy encryption. As of last October, iPhone users sent more than 300 billion blue-hued, emoji-filled messages. The company’s well-armed technology isn’t meant to thwart government investigations and it complies with government-issued requests like subpoenas, according to CNET.

Until the government can figure out a work-a-round, someone should tell Shoshanna that her emoji-laden text messages are safe.

via Huffington Post

Apple's WWDC keynote address yesterday seemed like a study in Newton's law: the tech version. For every glorified new product or feature announcement, there was an equal and opposite wave of anger and frustration from competitors who suddenly found themselves up against a behemoth that doesn't play well with others--or from Apple developers who found themselves cast outside the walled garden. The piecemeal rollouts (glaring absent an iPhone 5 update) may not have seemed like much individually, but arrows were slung high and low, hitting companies big and small. Without further ado, here's the angry mob Steve Jobs left in his wake.

iMessage: Pissed off Research In Motion, GroupMe, and Kik

Announcing a messaging service that mimics popular BBM features like delivery confirmation, the ability to tell when a message has been read, or when sometime is typing a reply just when RIM is almost down for the count? Yeesh, that's gotta burn. But the carcasses really piled up further down the food chain with group messaging service GroupMe, the belle of SXSW, and free real-time texting service Kik. We hardly knew ye.

iCloud: Pissed off Amazon and Google

Mere weeks after Amazon announced Cloud Drive and Google launched Music Beta, here comes Steve-o with a cloud storage service for files like photos and music that's completely free for 5GB, which means he probably even ticked off his own employees, at least the ones who had been working on Apple's pricier MobileMe. Google hasn't yet established a pricing plan. But iCloud only costs $24.99 per year, with allowances for up to 25,000 songs compared to Amazon's Cloud Drive costs $50 per year for $5,000 songs.  However, Amazon did the same price- undercutting maneuver with the Kindle when Barnes & Noble came out with the Nook. Jeff Bezos may think Jobs is a bitch, but he has to feel the same way about karma.

Safari's "Reading List": Pissed off Instapaper and many, many more.

Before turning sage about Apple's bookmarking service, which lets you save links to read later, Instapaper founder Marco Arment probably tweeted it best: "Shit."

Not mentioning the Lodsys debacle: Pissed off developers being sued by Lodsys.

In case you haven't been following the patent wars going on over at Apple, here's the short version. Lodsys, a patent-firm company--a mock Twitter account describes them as "a bunch of crooks who never invented anything"--is suing Apple developers for using an in-app payment technology. Apple came out in defense of its third-party developers. But at WWDC, there was nary a mention of their collective turmoil. Sean Woodhouse, an iOS developer and founder of Itty Bitty Apps tweeted:

Apple still pushing in app purchase with Lodsys outstanding? What's up with that? #wwdc

Stephen Vanderpool, another iOS developer at IMDB.com expressed a similar consternation:

You know what I didn't hear anything about in the #wwdc keynote? Lodsys.

Baking Twitter into iOS5: Pissed off Facebook and Instagram.

This does not bode well for Mark Zuckerberg's plan to wedge Facebook Connect between you and, well, everything on the internet. Likewise for hockey-stick growth-happy Instagram now that Apple has a photo integration for Twitter built-in.

Various assorted other features in iOS5: Pissed off Microsoft and Google.

There were so many similarities between iOS5 and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 that Joe Belfiore, director of Windows Phone, considered it a compliment, tweeting:

Feeling flattered today. Lots of great WP ideas headed to iOS. Camera button/above lock, auto-upload of pics, better notifications … wi-fi sync, built-in twitter, background download service, short-messaging chats (though we do Facebook!)

Although perhaps in this case, Microsoft just wants to feel like its still relevant enough to steal from. We think there was more thievery from Chrome's direction. With iOS5, you sign in to map and Twitters when you open the computer and then save files in iCloud. Deja-vu, Larry and Sergey?

Steve Jobs: Pissed off Paul Allen. We're just guessing here, but Allen has to spread the haterade around, right? That amount of vitriol can't just be all Bill Gates all of the time.

Who did we miss? Let us know in the comments!