Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

TextNow: Unlimited Free Texting on Your iPhone or iTouch (Google Voice support too!)

IronLogik said:
damn. i was hoping that it would be released soon. Now we're onto another 2 week wait huh?

Overall the app seems fine. It does however need some serious polish. I've yet to come across a text messaging application as polished as Apple's own.

For the To: field on composing a new message. Remove the (x) to remove the contact. It looks out of place and is pointless next to the + button.

Larger font size for your message when you're typing it.

The Send button looks funny where it is. I'd suggest an X to close the current message you're typing in on the right, emoticons icon on the left, and the send button in the center


sendwindow.jpg


Something like that. Make the button longer so it is proportional with the size of the box and centered. Not big enough that it's going to cause people to accidentally hit it, but bigger than it currently is.

Next, there's a bug on the keyboard. I can reproduce it every time when i do this.

1. Create a new message
2. Click the To: field, Type in part of someone's name so your selection box pops up below to select someone from a partial name.
3. Then rotate the iphone/ipodtouch in the opposite orientation, then switch back to the normal orientation, and back again. You'll notice the keyboard is all messed up and is in both orientations. I can screen shot it if you'd like.

I'll admit i discovered it by accident in the middle of typing a message and had to pause a few times to grab something, the result was the view rotating several times and caused this.

I'll agree you need to work out a better way to display the name/address stuff so people can more easily see who the message is from.

Option to turn off the icons for a person. Most of mine don't have icons so it's just a large box. I assume it looks pretty good if everyone has an icon, mine however don't, and I'd guess not everyone has icons on theirs either. An option to disable this would be rockin.

All i've got for now. If you want mock up's or screen shots let me know and i'll see what i can do.

Edit: added a mockup since the ascii text version was fail. Hope that gives a better idea. It's rough but should help visualize it.

Bigger font, bigger margin around the edges. Just looks more polished that way. (By all means my mockup is not intended to be "polished" it took me 3 minutes to make lol)

Also, show me how many characters I have remaining.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestions and the mockup. We will definitely take all of them into consideration for the next update.

As for the bug with the keyboard, I believe this has been fixed for the 3.1 update.
 
derek13 said:
Update, 09/11/2009:
Apple rejected our 3.1 submission. However, we have fixed what they wanted us to fix and resubmitted 3.1 with another feature:
Ability to personalize the app
personalize.png
Click to expand...

Very nice! Can't wait to see.

Sorry to hear the app got rejected! :eek:
 
derek13 said:
Thanks for the suggestions and the mockup. We will definitely take all of them into consideration for the next update.

As for the bug with the keyboard, I believe this has been fixed for the 3.1 update.
Click to expand...

3.1 of your app or 3.1 of the iphone OS? I'm currently running the 3.1 iphone update and it still does it if that's what you meant. If it's 3.1 of your app then awesome. glad it's fixed.
 
Hey derek, i thought a a cool feature to add to the app. i'll email you the idea, do you still have the current email or has that changed? thanks
 
kicko said:
Hey derek, i thought a a cool feature to add to the app. i'll email you the idea, do you still have the current email or has that changed? thanks
Click to expand...

either the old or new email address will end up in the same inbox so you can email me with the current email address you have
 
I have been beta testing this app for a few months already and I can honestly say that it is much better than textfree. Textfree takes ages to open compared to uSMS. I love this app and it does give you an option for a username now. The UI is very nice and the price is very good compared to the yearly prices from textfree. I purchased textfree before I became a beta tester for uSMS. Now I regret not waiting. Thanks Derek for a wonderful app.

I only have one gripe. I often text a person that is using a BB. And a person using and iPhone. The person with a BB cannot save my email in their contacts. That makes it a little difficult to initiate a conversation. The person using an iPhone cannot save it as well. For the iphone, texts do not appear in the same thread. It creates a new thread in the messaging app everytime which gets annoying for the recipient.
 
jnguyen4 said:
I have been beta testing this app for a few months already and I can honestly say that it is much better than textfree. Textfree takes ages to open compared to uSMS. I love this app and it does give you an option for a username now. The UI is very nice and the price is very good compared to the yearly prices from textfree. I purchased textfree before I became a beta tester for uSMS. Now I regret not waiting. Thanks Derek for a wonderful app.

I only have one gripe. I often text a person that is using a BB. And a person using and iPhone. The person with a BB cannot save my email in their contacts. That makes it a little difficult to initiate a conversation. The person using an iPhone cannot save it as well. For the iphone, texts do not appear in the same thread. It creates a new thread in the messaging app everytime which gets annoying for the recipient.
Click to expand...


I thought textfree was the best thing since sliced bread! Until it started crashing all the time, people not getting my messages, my phone not receiving any messages!!

Every text with U-SMS that I sent always went through very fast, conversations are just as smooth as texting from the default sms app =D

Navigating through U-SMS is much smoother than textfree! Much better interface!
 
Derek13:
Just before buying this, let me get precisely what to expect on Rogers (in Canada):
... I am the only one in my circle with an iphone (in fact the only one with a smart phone!)
... when I send a message how does it show up on a regular cell?
... how do the recipients respond?
... who gets charge what by Rogers.

Thanks
 
fredf said:
Derek13:
Just before buying this, let me get precisely what to expect on Rogers (in Canada):
... I am the only one in my circle with an iphone (in fact the only one with a smart phone!)
... when I send a message how does it show up on a regular cell?
... how do the recipients respond?
... who gets charge what by Rogers.

Thanks
Click to expand...

1. It has your name, and a random phone number they respond to. It won't show up as your phone number.
2. They can reply just as normal, however it won't be to your cell # it will be random. They can also send you texts by using your new (when the next version is released) usms email address (this is only usable by MMS supported phones)
3. Your friends will be charged per text (unless they have a plan giving them x number of texts or unlimited). You won't be charged anything unless they send texts to YOUR cell #.
 
IronLogik said:
1. It has your name, and a random phone number they respond to. It won't show up as your phone number.
2. They can reply just as normal, however it won't be to your cell # it will be random. They can also send you texts by using your new (when the next version is released) usms email address (this is only usable by MMS supported phones)
3. Your friends will be charged per text (unless they have a plan giving them x number of texts or unlimited). You won't be charged anything unless they send texts to YOUR cell #.
Click to expand...

I just downloaded this to my iPhone- and plan to add it to my wifes later today. Seems to work well enough for what I want it for (we each have the $5 @200/mth plan and spend most of them between us).

As a test, i sent a text to my work blackberry and it included my iPhone's number in the email. It does also have my name in the FRM section.

edit- To add some more information. On my bb I did not get the option to reply. I could choose to respond via email (in the form of my iphone#@m2.enfl...). I did this but never got the response on my iPhone. USMS mgs came through almost instantly to my BB though. I do have the 'respond' option when I send a regular carrier SMS.



I think the personalization update will be nice so I'm looking forward to that.

I also think adding MMS would be nice - but in reality, we won't use it enough to matter that much (just nice to have like everything else).
 
derek13 said:
I made the message shorter so it is now easier to RT. There is no limit how many times you can RT.
Click to expand...

So the more I RT, the better my chances of winning right? I also see you put "WinnerS will be announced"...more than 1 person will win a Nano?
 
I see several fundamental problems with the interface on this app still..

The keyboard covers up the bottom of the chat window. So I can't see the latest 2-3 texts while I'm typing. THAT is bad. If you are composing a message, the "chat" area should raise up to the height of the compose window so I can still view the last message without hitting the X button to make the keyboard disappear. I don't get why I have to mention this though :( It should be so obvious that the behavior is wrong.

The text size is too small for the text window you type in. I have to nearly squint to see the text and i'm not old nor do I have bad eyes. Make the text bigger please (I mentioned this before but I'm saying it again)

Next, the next is a minor thing but still very annoying. The X box on the compose window looks bad. The window is semi-transparent. So is the X box. That leads to some stupid looking graphics. Change the color and opacity of the X box. Make it easier to hit as well.
 
IronLogik said:
I see several fundamental problems with the interface on this app still..

The keyboard covers up the bottom of the chat window. So I can't see the latest 2-3 texts while I'm typing. THAT is bad. If you are composing a message, the "chat" area should raise up to the height of the compose window so I can still view the last message without hitting the X button to make the keyboard disappear. I don't get why I have to mention this though :( It should be so obvious that the behavior is wrong.

The text size is too small for the text window you type in. I have to nearly squint to see the text and i'm not old nor do I have bad eyes. Make the text bigger please (I mentioned this before but I'm saying it again)

Next, the next is a minor thing but still very annoying. The X box on the compose window looks bad. The window is semi-transparent. So is the X box. That leads to some stupid looking graphics. Change the color and opacity of the X box. Make it easier to hit as well.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback. We are still currently working on a solution to make the control more usable. We have not forgotten about this and are working to make it better.
 
Eminemdrdre00 said:
So the more I RT, the better my chances of winning right? I also see you put "WinnerS will be announced"...more than 1 person will win a Nano?
Click to expand...

Yes, the more you RT the better your changes will be. One winner will be announced, but if there are a lot of contest entries, we may bump it up to 2 or 3.
 
Is there any way in future updates to incorporate the date/time above the text messages (similiar to what the native text msg app has)?

I'm really liking the new color themes in the update!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back