Prior to Yosemite and iOS 8, SMS/MMS text messages were a second class citizen on your Mac. The Messages application only displayed iMessages, not SMS/MMS messages. A new day is dawning. From Apple’s web site:
With OS X Yosemite and an iPhone running iOS 8, you can send and receive SMS and MMS text messages right from your Mac. So when friends text you — regardless of what phone they have — you can respond from whichever device is closest. All the messages that appear on your iPhone now appear on your Mac, too. You can also initiate a text message conversation on your Mac by clicking a phone number in Safari, Contacts, or Calendar.
I use Messages all the time, partly because I spend more time on my Mac than on my phone or iPad, but mostly because I can type a lot faster on my Mac. Most of the folks I interact with work with iMessages, but when I run into someone who doesn’t my workflow grinds to a halt. I have to pull my phone out of my pocket, type a response, perhaps wait for their response, all while switching between my phone and Mac.
To me, this is another home run feature.
This is one of those tiny, almost microscopic details that would easily be lost in the shadows of the bigger, more glitzy Apple announcements… but for those who would make good use of it (and I’m one of them), this is a really big deal.
I’m assuming this will be available on the wifi-only iPad as well? If so, that’d really up its caché as a powerful mobile device.
I think you mean “cachet”, but good question about iPad.