If you’ve never owned a cellphone without a data plan, chances are good that you’ve never heard of Google’s SMS Search — a way to query the search engine by sending a text message, getting results back in the form of text rather than a list of web links. It’s probably just as well, since the company recently decided to close the service, reports TechCrunch. A Google spokesperson provided us with the following statement:

"Closing products always involves tough choices, but we do think very hard about each decision and its implications for our users. Streamlining our services enables us to focus on creating beautiful technology that will improve people’s lives."

As the market shifts toward smartphones, and given that the bits consumed by your data connection are orders of magnitude less expensive than an SMS, it’s no surprise that Google would choose to close the service. For the time being, the company is still providing its other SMS-based services, including Gmail and Calendar, but if it can see fit to scrap the hugely popular Google Reader RSS-syncing service, we doubt it feels compelled to keep dragging them into the future.