The Mobile sMs application that comes on the iphone is functional, but it lacks many of the text messaging features that people have grown used to on other phones. an initial lack of multiplerecipient texting was remedied in irmware Version 1.1.3, but some serious limitations remained.

Multimedia Messaging service (MMs), also known as picture messaging, provided by every mobile carrier and supported by most camera phones, is completely missing from the iphone.

There are other reasons the built-in sMs just doesn’t cut it. Many people want to send canned messages from a message template “i’m going to be late, please have the call without me” without having to type it all. and even though the ipod touch, not being a phone, doesn’t have any built-in texting support, people want to send messages with it as well.

Luckily, there are some useful tricks and third-party applications to help you get around the sMs and MMs limitations. Many of these solutions use built-in features of the iphone or are app store apps and thus don’t require jailbreaking.

Send Multiple text Messages via email

Prior to irmware 1.1.3, sending a sMs to multiple recipients was impossible. even if your iphone has 1.1.3 or later, the sMs that you send to multiple recipients still diminishes your plan’s monthly allowance of text messages. sending text messages via email conserves your valuable text message allotment and allows iphone owners to use email groups to still send sMs to multiple recipients.

The only requirements for accomplishing this are that you know what cellular service provider each of your recipients uses, and that you are connected to the internet with either Wi-Fi, 3G, or eDGe. no jailbreak is required! as long as you know this information, the rest of this process is a piece of cake.

First, write down the 10-digit cellphone numbers of the contacts that you would like to send the sMs message to. next, open your email account and compose a new email. in the To ield, type in the 10-digit phone number followed by an “@” sign and the domain address associated with that person’s cellular service provider. The domain addresses and character limits of major U.s. cellular service providers are listed here:

• Older AT&T Wireless: xxxxxxxxxx@mmode.com (110- and 160-character limits for TDMA subscribers and mMode/Next Generation network users, respectively)

• Cingular: xxxxxxxxxx@mobile.mycingular.net (160-character limit)

• Newer AT&T Wireless: xxxxxxxxxx@txt.att.net

• T-Mobile: xxxxxxxxxx@tmomail.net (140-character limit)

• Verizon: xxxxxxxxxx@vtext.com (160-character limit)

• Sprint PCS: xxxxxxxxxx@messaging.sprintpcs.com (160-character limit)

Say, for example, that you wanted to send messages to the recipients whose numbers are (619) 123-4567, an aT&T Wireless subscriber, and (818) 123-4567, a Verizon subscriber. You would write them as 6191234567@txt.att.net and 8181234567@vtext.com, pressing the blue plus sign button to add additional recipients. characters written in the subject and message ields of the email will be included in the text messages as “(subject)message”.

Because you are sending the sMs messages via email, it won’t be billed as a text message, and it won’t count against your monthly allowance of text messages. however, it will still count as an incoming sMs message for the recipient, which could count against their monthly text message allowance and/or incur a charge, depending on their service provider.

In addition to multiple sMs recipients, this email technique will work for a single recipient. By sending sMs text messages to one or more recipients using your email, you’ll be saving money, as these won’t be billed as normal outgoing sMs text messages.

A similar approach is taken by several of the app store sMs messaging applications, such as Maildash by pureBlend software and Quicksend from absolute apps. These applications use sMs gateways to forward emails to sMs clients.

Send SMS through Your instant Messenger

A second way to get text messages out of your iphone or ipod touch is through instant messaging. Both Yahoo! and aiM use sMs gateways that allow you to text directly from an iM client. To send text messages via iM, just add a “buddy” using the recipient’s phone number with a plus before it. You’ll get responses to this sMs in your iM chat.

Sending MMS Messages

here is a way for you to send and receive MMs without any jailbreaking whatsoever. as with sMs, to send a picture message, you must irst know what cellular service provider the recipient uses. once you know this information, use one of following MMs email addresses, replacing xxxxxxxxxx with the recipient’s 10-digit mobile number:

• AT&T Wireless: xxxxxxxxxx@mms.att.net

• Cingular: xxxxxxxxxx@mms.mycingular.net

• Sprint PCS: xxxxxxxxxx@messaging.sprintpcs.com

• T-Mobile: xxxxxxxxxx@tmomail.net

• Verizon: xxxxxxxxxx@vzwpix.com

once you have the recipient’s information ready, open the picture from your iphone’s camera Roll, and click the icon at the bottom left to pull up a menu. select email photo, and you’ll be brought to the email composition screen with your picture attached to the email. on the irst line, enter the recipient’s cell number followed by the appropriate MMs email address. if you want to send it to more than one person, just add an additional email address in the To ield. Then press send, and the recipient will receive the picture as a normal MMs message.

Although sending this MMS via email is free for you, the recipient will still be charged by their service provider for an incoming MMS message.

If the recipient has an iPhone that does not support MMS, you will have to send the picture to their regular email address instead of the previously described MMS email addresses.

Once you know this process will work, you can add a “phone-email” to your contacts’ email d listings in your Address Book. You could also do this in advance on your computer’s address book and sync it over to your iPhone.

Receiving Multimedia Message Service (MMS) on the iphone

Unfortunately, the iphone does not support Multimedia Messaging service (MMs). some carriers implement an alternate method of receiving the message via the Web. in the U.s. market on aT&T, when you receive an MMs, you may get an email message, telling you to log into a web page. Without copy-and-paste functionality, accessing this message is a pain, but it can be done.

Because of this inconvenience, it’s best to have your would-be senders ind an alternative way to send you multimedia messages. some options are:

1. have the sender attach the media via email to any email address you can check on your iphone. if you have a lot of friends who send you messages, you can set up a separate email account. as long as the media is in an iphone-compatible format (JpeG, pnG, TiFF, Mp3, and so on), you’ll be able to play it back or view it on the iphone. and because this process is done completely by email, neither you nor the sender will incur any MMs charges from your service providers. if the sender is on an iphone as well, the solution is obvious have them email the picture.

2. alternatively, if the sender only knows your cell number, they can host the picture on a web page (if it’s not already hosted), and send an sMs message containing a link to the web page. Depending on their phone, they may have a feature that allows them to send a link as a text message, or to copy and paste the URL from their phone’s web browser into an email.

Text Your iphone with Your desktop instant Messenger

Email is a great way to send messages to your phone, but often, tiny ephemeral to-dos or URL messages get lost in the morass of distracting email messages. and if you don’t have push email conigured just right, the message might not arrive right away. The sheer inconvenience of booting up an email program, typing in your iphone email address, and waiting for it to send begs for another solution.

Fortunately, there’s a way to get important notes onto the iphone: text messaging. Using an iM-tosMs gateway such as those provided by the aoL instant Messaging (aiM) or Yahoo! Messenger desktop clients, you can very easily send URLs and short messages to your phone. This gives you prominent notiication on your phone’s screen, as well as an audible alert, so if the message is “don’t forget to buy milk,” you’ve got a good chance of noticing it before you get home.

Depending on the text message option attached to your cellular plan, you may pay extra to send or receive text messages.

Add Your phone to Your instant Messenger

First, create an account on either aiM or Yahoo!; for this example, we use an aiM user called “iphonehacks.” The look of the screen varies by client (we’re using a Mac here) but the approach is the same in most clients: add a user using the plus sign and the 10-digit number.

Note to Self

Sending a note to yourself is quite fast due to the fast-delivery design of the text messaging system (that’s part of what your text message plan is paying for). Typing phone numbers into the iM is probably the quickest way to get them from the desktop to the phone and not lose it, which is especially useful if someone is reading a number to you. The number will be converted to a text message through aoL’s iM-to-sMs gateway, and sent to the iphone. The iphone recognizes it as a phone number, so you can click it and quickly dial it.