For a little while, I’ve been mulling starting a recurring feature here on MobHappy called Things My Phone Should Do, which would pretty much do as advertised: reveal the things that I think my phone, in an ideal world, would do (and of course give you plenty of opportunity to leave a comment saying that what I want is indeed possible, and has been for sometime, so I should start paying more attention, and so on). Now, Sprint’s gone and pre-empted what I was going to talk about in the first entry in the series: being able to receive and respond to text messages via my computer.
My basic thinking was that I spend a lot of time in front of a computer, and when I’m doing so, it makes more sense to me to receive SMS on it, and be able to use the keyboard to craft a reply. Clearly I hadn’t thought this through much, as a cursory Google search reveals the Mac address book application can do exactly this, which is nice to know, at least for me and other Mac users with Bluetooth-enabled GSM phones. But Sprint’s new text service allows users to log in to its web site and receive and send text messages in a setup akin to a web-based email service. It can even store messages, leaving a copy even if they’re deleted from the phone, and it also gives users the ability to set up SMS blacklists and whitelists — the first I’ve heard of any carrier offering users such ability.
This is quite cool, and something it would great to see other operators offer. While one of the main benefits of SMS is obviously the near-ubiquitous coverage offered by mobile devices, this shows how it can be adapted to better fit a users’ context, and improve usability.
So this pares back my list of Things My Phone Should Do a bit — feel free to leave your own suggestions along these lines in the comments, or
Update: File this entire post under “too good to be true”: The Mac address book thing doesn’t work over Bluetooth, and the Sprint web app is pretty flaky — it only seems to currently allow you to send messages to other Sprint phones, while I can’t seem to get it to show any incoming messages, and there’s no documentation or support I can find online. So it’s dream deferred…
[tags]mobile, mobile messaging, sms, sprint[/tags]
It sounds cool. When you say “leaves a copy” do you mean when you send a SMS from inside the web site, it also places what you sent in your phone’s outbox? Does it do this via bluetooth or the long way around through the network?
This is the first I am hearing of this type of “make the user happy” feature from a carrier ( they usually just want to make money ). Have “outsiders” like teleflip.com and mozes.com forced the carriers to step-up?
Also, if you have the time, how about some screen shots and more details of you using this utility?
Great post.
Todd
Hi Todd, the service runs over the web, not Bluetooth — I’m not certain if it syncs messages entered on the Web to the phone’s sent messages folder, but it sounds like any messages sent or received from the phone are also stored and availble through the site. I’ll do some more digging.
Hi,
Have you had a look at BulkSMS? http://usa.bulksms.com/
You will have to buy credits to use it and you can’t send a SMS as yourself (or maybe you can?) or be charged according to your cellphone payment plan, but you can send messages by email or desktop.
Sorry, but this is ancient history. Many telcos have offered services like this through their portals for years. For example, Swisscom (through their ISP, Bluewin), have provided web SMS for as long as I can remember.
See here (French version) - “SMS Box”, in the middle under the navigation bar. Billing is done through the internet access package.
And the Mac address book thing…. well I’ve been using it to send & receive SMS with various Sony Ericsson phones for ages.
whoops - forgot to paste the link. Here it is:
http://www.bluewin.ch/index_f.html
David — see my comment above (”(and of course give you plenty of opportunity to leave a comment saying that what I want is indeed possible, and has been for sometime, so I should start paying more attention, and so on)”)
In any case, are those services integrated with a user’s mobile account, or is it separate? The facility to send SMS from a web site has existed here for quite some time, however, this is the first example I’ve seen where it’s integrated with a phone. Having two separate accounts (and having to maintain something in addition to my usual mobile, as the commenter above suggested), seems like it be a lot of effort without enough benefits.
The Mac thing would be pretty ideal for me, if it would work — I’m using an SE K750i, any tips you can share?
I’ll answer my own question, as using my mighty Google-Fu found a fix to enable SMS support in the address book for the K750i:
http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2005/08/using_the_sony_ericsson_d750k750w800_on_os_x/
Carlo
Mac users have also been able to do this for quite some time with little program called Salling Clickr. http://www.salling.com/Clicker/mac/
Besides letting you control virtually every component of your computer with your cell phone like a remote control it also has a feature that allows you to go into your Mac address book and send SMS from your computer provided your phone is hooked up to your cmputer via bluetooth.
I have been using it for about a year now.
Actually - the nokia PC manager also provides this. It is a nice desktop applicaiton that works over bluetooth and allows you to send sms via your phone…
of course, if we are just talking about sending - you can send them from most carriers ( but that was already mentioned.)
Carlo, certainly in some cases the service is fully integrated. Actually, there are several possibilities from Swisscom - both the Mobile and the Internet portal offer web-based SMS. Since Swisscom also supports SMS over the fixed network, and has done so for many years, the matrix of possibilities is quite extensive. And the billing is integrated, although the mobile and fixed/ADSL parts are seperate.
So, I can access a Swisscom website as an authenticated subsrciber and send an SMS using a web form, without any extra account or billing step. Is this what you mean ?
David.
Wow! These are some great comments, lots of information here. SMS is apparently a hot topic, which is understandable since it is in such pervasive use.
I asked a friend, who is with Sprint, to try out the MyPCS portal’s SMS utility. He said he could only send text messages to other Sprint customers - which seems pointless.
I have been using teleflip.com for the past year and it great. I can only send outgoing SMS from my desktop email program, but it IS to anyone, and I don’t even have to know what carrier they use. As far as tracking the sent messages, I just use the mail program’s out box.
When, O, when will there be the means to send and receive SMS from the desktop to anyone and track it like email?
Carlos how about a MobHappy post that compares the various SMS services, with a focus on utility and carrier neutrality? A “SMS Shootout” if you will.
Thanks to everyone for your comments, I learned alot!
hi,
Interesting post. I agree that SMS is a real hot topic in the business space, really underutilised at the moment.
Carlo, if the functionality you need is to send an SMS easily from your PC, that you are effectively on line most of the time (I assume with your email client open), that you can not be bothered to go to a specific website, that you want this to be integrated into your email solution, ie: have it integrated with sent and receive emails, that you want the recipient to be able to respond via sms and the sms to be received into your inbox or your mobile at your choice, and are looking at even more functionalities, I suggest to have a look at http://www.redoxygen.com.
Incidentally, SwissCom uses Red Oxygen solution for their business solution.
Any question, do not hesitate to let me know, herve dot humbert at redoxygen dot com