Develop Bugs

Group Text messaging

hello, i often have to taxt 15 people the same message, does anyone know if i can group these together instead of inserting their names in one by one. thanks.

as far as I know, SMS can only be sent to one person at a time (hence Simple Messaging Service). I sell cell phones, and have asked my reps this question in the past; all of them gave me a resounding "no".

Group SMS, I'm sure there is something like that....
interestingfellow said:
as far as I know, SMS can only be sent to one person at a time (hence Simple Messaging Service). I sell cell phones, and have asked my reps this question in the past; all of them gave me a resounding "no".
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I believe what he means is multiple SMS receipents for the same message? There's a lot of mobile phones that can do that now.
If you go pocketgear or handago, i think there's quite a few selection you can choose from.
Regards.

thats what i meant,,, any ideas what the programes are called??. peter

If you just put several numbers, spaced out with ";", does that not work?
Cheers

thanks , yes that works but only for that time, i want to keep that group so every week i can just send to one group .. peter

can't you make a contact with that list as mobile phone number ? Not a nice solution, but it might work.

tried that, doesnt work for some reason , thanks anyway. peter

I tried saving a list as one number as described, even though I use semi-colon as seperator it appears as one long number when calling it from contacts, it does however work that one time when entered manually with seperator.

One way is to use Contacts to create a category for the group of numbers, then add the numbers you want as contacts within that category.
Then select that category in Contacts, select all, tap and hold, then select Send SMS. This puts all the numbers in the 'To:' field separated by ';' I haven't tried actually sending an SMS like this so I don't know if it will work.
If it does, then hopefully it will fill in the numbers from the Contacts category correctly each time.

Has anybody tried this yet?

I have tried, it but even if you insert the ";" and a space when you press send SMS it transfers the number without the ";" and space so its just one long number in my case 15 x 11 = 165 :x

dcs said:
One way is to use Contacts to create a category for the group of numbers, then add the numbers you want as contacts within that category.
Then select that category in Contacts, select all, tap and hold, then select Send SMS. This puts all the numbers in the 'To:' field separated by ';' I haven't tried actually sending an SMS like this so I don't know if it will work.
If it does, then hopefully it will fill in the numbers from the Contacts category correctly each time.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I use this method often and it works. The only bad thing is that I have to tick every single contact in the category.

no matter what trick to use with Contacts it will be limited to 15 names only ... try search for "sendSMS" free s/w ... it does the job nicely with retrying for failed messages ... it supports also flash SMSs

saving all the numbers in contacts with a ";" and a space did work . i tried it yesterday several times but nothing happened, this morning they all came through :roll: they must have got lost in cyber space somewhere.
thanks for every ones help and sugestions . :lol:

How to modify the registry in order to send more than 160 characters in SMS

Does anyone know what to add or remove or change in the registry to allow more than 160 characters on sending SMS ?
Thanks

this is a standard sms thing... you cant change how many characters to send in one message.. now you can type over 160 and your phone should display like 168/2 where the first number is characters and the 2nd number is how many sms' its going to send... and when it sends most newer phones will combine the 2 messages on the recieving device and it will display as 1

My O2 Xda Stealth shows as you described, however, it also gives me an error "Your Text Message cannot be sent". It works perfectly within 160 characteres (1/160) but as soon as you start with (2/320) shows the error when you hit SEND.
Any ideas ? Could you provide the Registry ?
Thanks

Maybe some restriction from your provider, I have O2 XDA Stealth too and I am sending longer messages without any problems...

Ok, thanks, let me go back an ask my Network provider to see if I have restriction.

shogunmark said:
this is a standard sms thing... you cant change how many characters to send in one message.. now you can type over 160 and your phone should display like 168/2 where the first number is characters and the 2nd number is how many sms' its going to send... and when it sends most newer phones will combine the 2 messages on the recieving device and it will display as 1
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Click to collapse
This issue was a nightmare for me until I realized how to overcome with continuous efforts. In my case I use the arabizer and thus, I can send 160 char. in one shot (english) but when I change to arabic, the number of char. turns to 1/70 (i.e. max of 70 char. per shot).
Now, that wasn't the case always, I upgraded to one of the latest arabizer versions and surprisingly, everytime I wanted to send english sms it only allowed 70 char! I had no time to dig and find out why is this happening, though I crossed check between older cab files and new ones and found that among the difference was that the new one had two fonts files those are "tahoma" and when installed, voila the problem was solved.
The moral is it is not a standard SMS thing, it is something with localization characters. May be

This is not the case. The question if you can send full 160 characters or only 70 characters depends on the fact wheather you use ASCII or UNICODE. In case of use Arabizer or some special national characters (same for us here in CZ), you can send only 70 characters per one message, but then you can continue and you can see i.e. 75/2 and the longer message will be sent by 2 parts. But he cannot send more than one message at all...

In my case was the Network. For some reason there was a limitation on sending SMS. Network customer service did not resolve my case, I surfed in Internet and found some tricks for GSM networks.
Bottom line I just write down the following ##004#[SEND] and then I received a message from the network "Success" or something like this (don't recall). But it was enough to be able to send more than 160 characters (obviously the system splitted it in "n" numbers of SMS when you submit it)
Hope it could also work with other peoples

Group Texting

Is this only working when everyone uses Windows Phones?
Tried it today and the conversations weren't threaded at all. It basically put my outgoing in one thread and replies from people all in their own threads. It was impossible to follow the conversation.
Has anyone tried it?
Yes it have it set to use MMS for group texting and all the devices I was texting were Android and iPhone devices.
Edit: and yea, I'm 100% sure it wasn't using different protocols for different people, since they were sitting next to me when I tested it...
Also, replies from others in the group were only coming to me, which made it impossible for anyone else to follow the conversation.
Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

N8ter said:
Is this only working when everyone uses Windows Phones?
Tried it today and the conversations weren't threaded at all. It basically put my outgoing in one thread and replies from people all in their own threads. It was impossible to follow the conversation.
Has anyone tried it?
Yes it have it set to use MMS for group texting and all the devices I was texting were Android and iPhone devices.
Edit: and yea, I'm 100% sure it wasn't using different protocols for different people, since they were sitting next to me when I tested it...
Also, replies from others in the group were only coming to me, which made it impossible for anyone else to follow the conversation.
Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk
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Click to collapse
Did any of the iPhones have iMessage enabled? I know it reverts to SMS if the recipient does not support iMessage. I suspect for Group messaging, it will revert to MMS. I am wondering if there may be an issue if some are MMS and others are iMessage.
Also, with iPhone's the numbers of all recipients are visible to all recipients.
http://www.moxiemoshow.com/group-messaging-iphone/
When you sent messages to the group, were all numbers visible to all recipients?
I am wondering if Mango implemented group text messaging in a way that does not expose the numbers of all recipients. If the numbers for all recipients are not visible to all recipients, then Windows Phone 7 and the iPhone don't implement it the same. So, on one of your friends phones, check to see if all numbers are visible for messages you sent. Since their replies only went to you, I suspect they are not receiving the numbers of all recipients.
I don't know how Android implements Group messaging. Since you didn't say any of your friends had issues, I am guessing it is the same way the iPhone does it. This probably means that iMessage isn't a factor.
Unfortunately, I cannot test this because I ported the number for my LG Quantum to Google Voice to use on my iPhone that work pays for. At some point, I will be getting a prepaid SIM to put in my Quantum so that I can test things, but I have not done so yet.

All I could see on the vibrant was that I got a message from myself. Nothing about other numbers. Biggest reason I wanted to do this is so that I can cc myself in every thread I start, giving me the ability to respond transparently from any of my devices.
Was traveling for 12 hours and people got confused when I swapped devices (and.sometimes I plain.just don't feel like switching off what I'm using at that moment). Don't think I message was the issue, since the android phones aren't working either.
I knowbiys sending an mms cause.I can see the empty subject field on all of the devices.
Maybe it only works for instant.messages?
This keyboard has the worse Autocorrect ever.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk

There are lots of legitimate shortcomings of this wonderful platform, this is not one of them.
I mass-text enough. And I have never expected their responses to show up in the mass text field. How on earth would that be engineered?

sure haven't said:
There are lots of legitimate shortcomings of this wonderful platform, this is not one of them.
I mass-text enough. And I have never expected their responses to show up in the mass text field. How on earth would that be engineered?
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Click to collapse
Although i haven't used the group texting, i wouldn't expect it either to do what i think he is thinking it would do.
Windows Phone keeps history on all your contacts and what each contact has said under that contact. It's not a forum with all of your users joining a thread and posting for all to see. It would make sense that the response to your text came from just that person. It's not designed to let everyone see the response, only the response coming from that person to you. If it allowed more than it would be group instant messaging or group chat. That is not what it is.
Also... isn't what you are trying to do, what email is for? would make more sense.

sure haven't said:
There are lots of legitimate shortcomings of this wonderful platform, this is not one of them.
I mass-text enough. And I have never expected their responses to show up in the mass text field. How on earth would that be engineered?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Funny thing. The OP posted about this in another thread stating that Android doesn't support group messaging. Somehow it became a Windows Phone 7 issue.
In any case the mods removed that post for other reasons and disabled his account. I only saw the post in an email, because I get emails of all posts to the thread he posted in. When I actually went to the thread it was all cleaned up. Since this is the 2nd disabling in a short period of time, it may be permanent.
iPhone does implent group sms so that when iPhone users text each other using group SMS, it effectivey is like a chat room. Responses go to all recipients. All recipients receive the phone numbers of all recipients which allows reply to send responses to all recipients.
I am not sure if Windows Phone 7 group SMS does something similar to this when all phones are Windows Phone 7. To me this feature is primarly useful for event organizers, such as the captain of my softball team that sends things out to all of us, such as weather updates or asking if we know of anyone that can sub. Not as much for a big chat.
I don't have an active SIM for my LG Quantum, so I can't test it.

I have always thought of group texting as more of a way to send for example a merry xmas to all your friends (like 80 or so) in one clip. You don't want all your friends getting all 80 responses (that may kill someones text plan if they have limited)
Interesing that the iphone does that. you would think it wouldn't due to the above issue or to use a different transport.

ROCOAFZ said:
I have always thought of group texting as more of a way to send for example a merry xmas to all your friends (like 80 or so) in one clip. You don't want all your friends getting all 80 responses (that may kill someones text plan if they have limited)
Interesing that the iphone does that. you would think it wouldn't due to the above issue or to use a different transport.
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Click to collapse
On the iPhone,
It doesn't send 80 messages to each recipient. It just includes all 80 phone numbers with the message.
But, if they reply, it will reply to all 80.
Somehow the replies from iPhones doing this only count as 1 message though.

JVH3 said:
On the iPhone,
It doesn't send 80 messages to each recipient. It just includes all 80 phone numbers with the message.
But, if they reply, it will reply to all 80.
Somehow the replies from iPhones doing this only count as 1 message though.
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Click to collapse
yeah i meant on the reply. hmm interesting ... maybe they included it in there plan... actually can you get limited messaging on an iphone plan? Maybe that is why?

ROCOAFZ said:
yeah i meant on the reply. hmm interesting ... maybe they included it in there plan... actually can you get limited messaging on an iphone plan? Maybe that is why?
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I think it is because group messing is actually MMS, not SMS.
This blog explains it well. http://shawnblanc.net/2010/12/iphone-group-messaging/
So, it uploads the message once.
Also, iPhone users have the free benefit of iMessage which gives unlimited messaging regardless of carrier between all iPhone OS 5 users. This also applies to iTouch and iPads.
So, on AT&T with my iPhone, I can message and iPhone on Verizon and Sprint for no charge. And to us it seems no different than SMS, except the background color is blue instead of green.

I turned group text off the minute I found out what it was I have a feeling most people don't know what they are actually doing when they use it. Whenever one goes out, I always end up with a bunch of unnecessary texts from people I don't even know.

Limited number of SMS characters when typing in another language - issue!!!

Ok, this is so weird. Had this problem on Android 4.0.2 and it's still here in 4.0.4.
As soon as I start typing in my language (I'm Roumanian), using any 3-rd party keyboard, I get a limited number of SMS characters.
When I type in English I find no problem. I get the 167 characters normal for a SMS message.
I attached two screenshots to show you what I'm talking about.
Does anyone have an answer? What should I do?

I cant see your attached image (the server is blocked here) but I have this same problem writing in portuguese. It is because of the encoding of the accents. As soon as you include an accent the encoding of the entire message changes and the message limit is reduced.

juliano_q said:
I cant see your attached image (the server is blocked here) but I have this same problem writing in portuguese. It is because of the encoding of the accents. As soon as you include an accent the encoding of the entire message changes and the message limit is reduced.
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Click to collapse
Thanks for taking the time to answer. I even tried 3-rd party SMS apps and still I get only 70 characters out of the normal 167. Is this an issue that Google overlooked?
Edit: It seems that Apple users are experiencing the same issue.
"This is only an issue for non-English speaking countries... That's why this is not a big deal for the North-Americans that (comprehensively) sometimes simply don't understand what are we talking about...
In any mobile Phone (iPhone included), when you write a SMS using special characters like "ç","á","é","í","ó","ú","ñ","ä", etc, the SMS are limited to only 70 characters instead of 160 characters because a extended encoding is necessary! So, you pay 3x the price of an SMS if you write 160 characters (it will send 3 SMS: 70+70+20). Besides that, the risk of the SMS not being delivered is higher because it is actually sending 3 SMS at once and sometimes it gets broken in the way.
So, to solve this issue, there is a feature in any Nokia mobile phone almost for 10 YEARS (!!!) called: "SMS Extended Character Set": ON/OFF
If turned ON, it uses extended character set with 70 characters per SMS and the destination Phone gets all the special characters: "ç","á","é","í","ó","ú","ñ","ä"
If it is turned OFF: the phone allows to write special characters, with 160 characters per SMS, but automatically converts the special characters to their basic equivalents "c","a","e","i","o","u","n","a" when sending the SMS.
... It is amazing how Apple is 10 years behind other mobile manufacturers in this matter... Maybe because Nokia is originally from Finland (where they use special characters and experienced the issue) while Apple is from the USA, where they naturally (and sadly) don't recognize this as a issue.
Imagine if you send 1000 SMS in a week and you have to pay them (many people pay them)... You have to be very careful not to introduce any special character otherwise you pay 3x the money!"

[Q] MMS length restriction

I received my Xperia Z1 compact a few days ago. No issues. Rooted no probs thanks to the peeps on zda.
Have come across one annoyance though. When I type out a text if the system judges it to be to long the system decides it is going to break the message up into multiple texts. I had this with my old Galaxy S2 but fortunately some bright spark managed to make a fix for that.
Does anyone know if there is a fix for this yet?

As far as I know the S2 converted the SMS to a MMS if it reached a certain length. I don't see this happening on the Z1 Compact (am I wrong?). The split up into multiple SMS is normal (limit is 160 ansi characters). So what are you exactly asking for?

297 25948855
My bad. I got my mms & sms confused. Basically the text system is breaking up long sms into multiple sms's. I appreciate this has become the norm it seems for sms but it to me is an annoyance. It is something that has been overcome with other handsets. Just wondering if anyone knows a way round it with the compact. Again sorry about the confusion.

Every phone will break up SMS with more than 160 ansi characters into multiple messages. It's the GSM standard.

I know it is the operator standard but as mentioned there have been ways around this in the past. I didn't know if there was with the compact yet. I'm guessing not by your responses.
Thanks anyway peeps

mitch2471 said:
I know it is the operator standard but as mentioned there have been ways around this in the past. I didn't know if there was with the compact yet. I'm guessing not by your responses.
Thanks anyway peeps
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
When I send SMS with more than 160 characters (or whatever the limitation by GSM was) it is still showing as 1 piece of sms. Same for received messages.
I read somewhere that Iphone and Android don't work too well on this, but I have no definitive answer or solution here for you.
Maybe it is operator dependent. No Idea. Both my Z ultra and compact do not suffer broken up messages. I am in Vietnam at the moment.. Hardly cutting edge IT leader, so I would have expected the same in developed nations....
I have used Handcent sms app before, and I remember in the options and settings, there was a checkbox you could tick to keep long sms in tact...

Try using SMS Zipper or PackSMS
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.impossiblesoft.packsmstrial&hl=en