When a feature omission becomes a UX problem
Simplifying software and interfaces is a great goal. It can go too far.
Consider a room full of iPhone users. One of them receives an SMS message. There is a great chance that someone else has the same alert noise as the recipient, and may pull their own phone out of their pocket to check for messages.
This is not ideal, but is to be expected given the limits of typical consumer devices. That is, if the room were full of Android or Nokia phones, the same problem might present itself.
What crosses the line into poor UX, in my opinion, is the inability to select a custom SMS alert tone (that is, one that did not come with the device). Users can not opt to sidestep the confusion of SMS recipient ambiguity.
I’m honestly surprised that now in the forth version of iOS, this problem remains (despite being a top-ten feature request on PleaseFixTheiPhone.com for quite a while now). As iPhones become more popular than ever — sales this quarter are 191% of what they were a year ago, and you can bet someone is still using most of those old phones — the scenario becomes more and more common.
Commence betting on whether or not this feature finally arrives in iOS 5!
