Patent ID: 8001192

Claim:
A wireless handheld device comprising: a processor located at the wireless handheld device; data storage located at the wireless handheld device; a general message template that is stored in the data storage and that defines a plurality of message fields; destination data stored in the data storage but not contained within the general message template, wherein, for a plurality of message destinations, the destination data comprises a plurality of template customization data records, wherein each of the template customization data records has a respective template customization ID, and wherein the destination data specifies for each message-destination of the plurality of message-destinations a template customization ID of a template customization data record that corresponds to that message-destination; a user interface located at the wireless handheld device and operable to select from the plurality of message destinations a message-destination to be sent a message, wherein the selected message-destination corresponds to a first template customization data record of the plurality of template customization data records, wherein the first template customization data record identifies (i) at least one message field, defined by the general message template, that shall be included in a message to the selected message-destination that corresponds to the first template customization data record, and (ii) at least one message field, defined by the general message template, that shall be excluded from the message to the selected message-destination that corresponds to the first template customization data record; and a composer application stored in the data storage, wherein the composer application is executable by the processor to apply the first template customization data record to customize the general message template so as to produce a message to be sent to the selected message-destination that corresponds to the first template customization data record, wherein the message to be sent to the selected message-destination comprises the at least one message field, defined by the general message template, that shall be included in a message to the selected message-destination that corresponds to the first template customization data record and excludes the at least one message field, defined by the general message template, that shall be excluded from the message to the selected message-destination that corresponds to the first template customization data record.