Apparatus and method for sharing content on a mobile device

1. A mobile computing device including an application, a content sharing interface, and a user interface, the mobile computing device comprising:

an application framework operative to invoke the content sharing interface, the content sharing interface including the user interface operative to:

prompt for and receive a selection of a recipient for a message;

prompt for and receive a selection of a compatible transport mechanism for a message from a generated list of at least one compatible transport mechanism associated with the selected recipient;

format the content of the message according to the selected transport mechanism, the formatting including changing the content when necessary from a first format to a second format compatible with the transport mechanism;

display the formatted content in a compose view of the mobile computing device, the compose view including a message composition area operative to edit the formatted content, receive additional message content, and insert a text message string, emoticon, or media object;

verify a type of device for the selected recipient;

format the content according to the device for the selected recipient; and

send the message to the selected recipient.

2. The mobile computing device of claim 1 , the transport mechanism comprising at least one of: a text message, an e-mail message, an instant message, a short message service (SMS) message, a multimedia message service (MMS) message, a facsimile, or a voicemail message.

3. The mobile computing device of claim 1 , the content sharing interface to receive formatted content from an application accessing the application framework.

4. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

receiving, on a mobile computing device, an indication to share content;

prompting for and receiving a selection of a recipient;

prompting for and receiving a selection of a transport mechanism for a message from a list of at least one transport mechanism generated in response to the selection of the recipient and associated with the selected recipient;

formatting the content to be shared for the message according to the selection of the transport mechanism associated with the selection, the formatting including changing the content from a first format to a second format compatible for sending via the transport mechanism associated with the selected recipient;

displaying the formatted content in a compose view on the device, the compose view including a message composition area for editing the formatted content; receiving additional message content; and inserting a text message string, emoticon, or media object into the message;

verifying a type of device for the recipient;

formatting the content according to the device; and

sending the formatted content message to the recipient.

5. The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

receiving the indication to share content while displaying the content.

6. The method of claim 5 , receiving the indication further comprising:

receiving a selection of at least one of: a menu option, a device hard button, a device soft button, a key press, or a key combination.

7. The method of claim 4 , the transport mechanism comprising at least one of: a text message, an e-mail message, an instant message, a short message service (SMS) message, a multimedia message service (MMS) message, a facsimile, or a voicemail message.

8. The method of claim 4 , the formatting the content further comprising:

converting content from a first type to a second type, wherein a type comprises one of: rich text, plain text, audio data, video data, image data, a uniform resource locator (URL), a map, or HTML.

9. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium comprising instructions that when executed by a computing system enable the computing system to:

receive, on a mobile computing device, an indication to share content;

prompt for and receive a selection of a recipient;

prompt for and receive a selection of a transport mechanism for a message from a list of at least one transport mechanism generated in response to the selection of the recipient and associated with the selected recipient;

format the content to be shared for the message according to the selection of the transport mechanism associated with the selection, the formatting including changing the content from a first format to a second format compatible for sending via the transport mechanism associated with the selected recipient;

display the formatted content in a compose view on the device, the compose view including a message composition area operative to edit the formatted content; receive additional message content; and insert a text message string, emoticon, or media object into the message

verify a type of device for the selected recipient; and

format the content according to the device for the selected recipient.

10. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 9 , the instructions further enabling the computer system to:

send the formatted content to the recipient.

11. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 9 , the transport mechanism comprising at least one of: a text message, an e-mail message, an instant message, a short message service (SMS) message, a multimedia message service (MMS) message, a facsimile, or a voicemail message.

12. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 9 , the instructions to format content comprising instructions enabling the computer system to perform at least one of:

convert rich text to plain text;

convert audio data to text;

convert text to audio data;

convert plain text to rich text;

convert a web page to a uniform resource locator (URL) pointing to that web page; and

convert a map comprising a series of tiles to an image.