Unified and best messaging systems for communication devices

Abstract

A unified messaging system which can provide messaging services for a plurality of different “message types” is disclosed. The unified messaging system can serve as a single interface to a number of messaging services provided by various messaging components which use different message types (e.g., mail server). A unified message type is implemented and presented to a user as an abstract message. In addition, the unified messaging system can automatically determine, based on a first selected feature, if one or more message types should be used. A particular message type can also be automatically selected as a “best message type” based on one or more selected options.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A handheld communication device for transmission of messages to recipient devices, the handheld communication device comprising:
 a display; and   a processor configured, in at least one mode of message composition, to:
 present a unified messaging interface to a user via the display for composition of messages which can be transmitted from the handheld communication device in at least two different transmittal message types, including a Short Message Service (SMS) transmittal message type and a non-SMS transmittal message type; 
 determine, based at least in part on a recipient address associated with a message, whether the non-SMS transmittal message type can be used to transmit the message to the recipient address; 
 automatically select the non-SMS transmittal message type to be used for the transmission of the message to the recipient address when it is determined that the non-SMS transmittal message type can be used; and 
 automatically select the SMS transmittal message type to be used for the transmission of the message to the recipient address when it is determined that the non-SMS transmittal message type cannot be used.