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Free Texting

I

iluvifone

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 28, 2010
281
0
I'm wondering if there's any apps (Via cydia or otherwise) that allow text messages to be sent for free, using data connection or w/e, i don't care.

I have 2000 local texts (in my city in canada), and 6gb data..

i think it's like 25 cents to text to the states, and even more for overseas.. Also, it would be nice if the other person wasn't required to have an iphone, because a lot of my friends don't. Just free plain 'old text messages.

Anyone?

Thx
 
Free texting apps have been around for years and the people you text don't need an iPhone. Textfree unlimited and MessageyLite are good, but I'm not sure if international texting is free.
 
Textfree uses a dedicated phone number but it doesn't do MMS....yet. Messagey does do MMS but uses an email address. I prefer Textfree.
 
Thanks for the recommendations guys.

I'll take a look when I get home, but i'm just curious, how exactly does textfree work? Does it use your data connection or ?? Do your international friends text you using your regular cell #, or do you get osme special #??

Thx
 
iluvifone said:
Thanks for the recommendations guys.

I'll take a look when I get home, but i'm just curious, how exactly does textfree work? Does it use your data connection or ?? Do your international friends text you using your regular cell #, or do you get osme special #??

Thx
Click to expand...


I have Textfree on my phone but have yet to use it, I'm waiting until the end of the month to finish off this billing cycle before finally getting rid of paying for SMS/MMS. I do have a friend who uses it. As far as I can tell, it uses your data plan to send and receive messages and it does give you a dedicated number. Though you will now have to give anyone you meet and anyone you already have in your address book two numbers from here on out, one to text you and the other for voice calls. Of course, who really uses a smart phone for voice these days?
 
Not in the UK :(

Hi
anyone know of an app similar to this that will work for texting international from the UK?

cheers
 
AIM and probably the other messaging programs allow you to send messages to a phone number as a text.
 
iluvifone said:
i'm just curious, how exactly does textfree work? Does it use your data connection or ?? Do your international friends text you using your regular cell #, or do you get osme special #??
Click to expand...
All free text apps use your iPhone's data connection and most do it via email. That is how you get free texting using them.

TextFree provides you with a separate phone number specifically for texting. It makes the texts more reliable and easier for friends to remember, because other free apps just use an email address. Your friends will have to text you back on the number you get from Textfree. If they don't and end up texting your cell phone number then you will get charged by your cell carrier for the text.

Textfree is free but comes with a small banner at the bottom for ads, as they have to make money somehow. You can remove the ads for $6 a year. The ad banner is so small it doesn't bother me.

But as someone suggested Google Voice is an even better option to use with Textfree. You can set up the Google Voice number so incoming texts go through Textfree. And your voice calls can go to any number to designate, cell or home. Plus with Google Voice you have online voicemail and the ability to block calls. Best of all, it is also free.
 
Resist said:
...
TextFree provides you with a separate phone number specifically for texting. It makes the texts more reliable and easier for friends to remember, because other free apps just use an email address. Your friends will have to text you back on the number you get from Textfree. If they don't and end up texting your cell phone number then you will get charged by your cell carrier for the text.
...
Click to expand...
What happens if someone calls the number assigned to you by TextFree? Does it get forwarded to your regular voice number, do they get a recording, or what happens? Thanks.
 
danny_w said:
What happens if someone calls the number assigned to you by TextFree? Does it get forwarded to your regular voice number, do they get a recording, or what happens? Thanks.
Click to expand...

They hear a message saying "You've just called a TextFree number" and then you'll get a text saying that someone called you.
 
I'll give a major +1 to TextFree here. Copied/pasted from my post in another TextFree thread:

Still using TextFree exclusively with absolutely no problems whatsoever these past few months except 2-3 instances of their servers being down for a minute or two at a time. TextFree combined with a discount through studentrate.com has enabled me to get my bill down to $69 total monthly on my iPhone 4 with AT&T with unlimited data/texting (texting using TextFree). I used to pay $110 total a month with my old 3G iPhone!!

So, again, I love TextFree!

I'll also add that beta testing is in progress for TextFree Voice and I got an invite today and have been using it. It gives FREE unlimited incoming calls and you can buy or "earn" minutes to make outgoing calls. To "earn" minutes for outgoing calls they give you a massive list (tons of free ones) of apps from iTunes to choose from. Downloading each one gives you a certain number of minutes (the free ones range from 10 minutes to 16 minutes). Anyway, all you have to do is download the app, and open it once, then you're credited with that number of minutes.

So, it appears it's VERY easy to rack up hundreds of minutes all for free and VERY easily. I've gotten over 200 minutes already just in the past 20 minutes or so just from downloading free apps and opening them once, then deleting them.

It almost seems too good to be true, but it is true, and it works! I've made/received several calls already today with it. The call quality isn't as good as a "native" iPhone 4 call on 3G, but man, it works great and it's free!

You can also turn an iPod Touch or iPad into a phone with TextFree Voice with a mic/headset.

I'm just beyond impressed with Pinger/TextFree. Now all we need is picture messaging from TextFree
 
Google voice is good, but no push yet, unless you transcribe to an email. I use text plus with MMS. It's been solid for me. Intl testing allowed to other text plus users for free.
 
I've been using TextFree ever since I read about it here a little bit ago and have been very impressed with it. Occasionally notifications and/or texts will be a little slow to appear, but overall it is great. My gf uses texts almost exclusively and it really helps. She has unlimited family texting on T-Mobile so it doesn't cost either of us to go crazy. Actually I have wanted to get back to the iPhone for quite a while since I sold my 2G but texting with her is what clinched it for me, since the keyboard makes it so much easier than a plain phone keypad, and I can see both her texts and mine in a running conversation. At 57 I never would have thought I would be texting, but here I am!
 
Here is the setup I have using my Google Voice number, which is the only number I give out to anyone, and Text Free, which I simply use as a notification app on my iPhone.

1) Setup text forwarding in Google Voice to send all texts to your Google Account (Gmail in my case). All texts come with "SMS" as part of the subject line.
2) Setup a filter in Gmail to forward all messages with "SMS" in te subject line to the Text Free email address you get when you setup an account (username@textfree.com).

Now when somebody sends me a text to my Google Voice number, it gets forwarded to my Text Free email address and to the app and that gives me a pop-up just like any other text message would pop-up if I had texting through AT&T - only now I'm doing it over the data network, not the cell network so the only caveat is that you need a data connection. I click "Close" and open up GV Connect or GV Mobile+ and respond.

I'm hoping the official GV app eliminates the need for these workarounds, but this works just as well.
 
chriskzoo said:
Here is the setup I have using my Google Voice number, which is the only number I give out to anyone, and Text Free, which I simply use as a notification app on my iPhone.

1) Setup text forwarding in Google Voice to send all texts to your Google Account (Gmail in my case). All texts come with "SMS" as part of the subject line.
2) Setup a filter in Gmail to forward all messages with "SMS" in te subject line to the Text Free email address you get when you setup an account (username@textfree.com).

Now when somebody sends me a text to my Google Voice number, it gets forwarded to my Text Free email address and to the app and that gives me a pop-up just like any other text message would pop-up if I had texting through AT&T - only now I'm doing it over the data network, not the cell network so the only caveat is that you need a data connection. I click "Close" and open up GV Connect or GV Mobile+ and respond.

I'm hoping the official GV app eliminates the need for these workarounds, but this works just as well.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you would go through the extra gyrations needed to reply to a text message. With TextFree by itself (or ordinary SMS) I simply type my response in the reply window. It sounds like this is an extra step that is completely unnecessary. Can you tell me what is the advantage? I'm serious, all this is new to me.
 
danny_w said:
I'm sorry, but I don't understand why you would go through the extra gyrations needed to reply to a text message. With TextFree by itself (or ordinary SMS) I simply type my response in the reply window. It sounds like this is an extra step that is completely unnecessary. Can you tell me what is the advantage? I'm serious, all this is new to me.
Click to expand...

he uses GV to rout all texts (from mobile number, GV itself, textfree and any other source) to one central number. he uses textfree to notify him of new texts since the current GV apps do not support push.
 
I like textplus because it uses the same number you already have and it works with regular phones, so no one has to remember a different number to text you.

There's an ad-free version for $3 which i want to buy, but they don't say if it's ad free forever, or if it's a subscription for 1 month or so...
 
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