sms Archives - Tech Stuff

December 3, 2019November 6, 2019

hpE BDay tx msg

Today the humble text message turns twenty-seven. It was in 1992 that the first text message was sent an engineer from Vodafone, sent the message “Merry Christmas” from a PC to a mobile device using Vodafone’s UK network.

I don’t recall the first text message I sent, but it was one technology that I have never really taken advantage of.

I only really started sending text messages when I got my first iPhone. I think my problem was with predictive text or even understanding texting language. The advantage of the iPhone was a proper keyboard and not needing to try and use a numeric keypad. I could never get my head around the numeric keypad and did like and prefer the qwerty keyboard. Still have that today when people send me SMS texts, sometimes I have no idea what they are trying to say! I know, I know, I am old…

Of course Messages on the iPhone isn’t actually SMS either…

I still use SMS, in the main for receiving updates from the NHS, my dentist and delivery services. I prefer SMS updates as I find that e-mail updates get lost in the volume of e-mail I get. Also SMS self organises on my iPhone and I get very little if any SMS spam.

Back in 2012, I mentioned in a (similar) blog post over on eLearning Stuff that:

There are signs from Ofcom that the use of texting has peaked and is on a decline.

In 2012 there were 162billion text messages sent in the UK, in 2018 there were just 74billion text messages sent, that’s a 54% drop. Source,

So Ofcom was right and we have seen a decline.

Are we sending less messages?

Well no not really, what’s also happened in that same time period is a huge increase in the use of tools such as iMessage (or is it Messages) on iOS devices, Facebook Messenger and of course WhatsApp. These services are replacing the need for sending SMS messages for many users.

So when was the last time you sent an SMS?

July 27, 2009

Get Twitter by SMS on O2

First Twitter turned off SMS notification in the UK…

Then they turned it back on for Vodafone subscribers in the UK.

Now they have turned it on for O2 subscribers too.

Full, two-way interaction with Twitter over SMS is now available for everyone who uses O2, the largest mobile operator in the UK.

Easy to set up

To Twitter over SMS with your iPhone or any other mobile, head over to your account settings and activate your device. The Twitter shortcode in the UK is 86444 if you want to save it in your address book.

Not sure impact on me as the iPhone and Twitterific makes it very easy to keep in touch with Twitter. However if you have a “standard” phone, or a phone without a data contract for the web, then this does make sense and will be useful.

March 5, 2008

Don’t text and walk!

From the Guardian…

In case anyone reading this is one of the 68,000 individuals who apparently interfaced thus with street furniture in London last year (mostly resulting in cuts and bruises, but with a fair proportion of broken noses, cheekbones and one fractured skull in the mix too) and therefore is self-evidently stupid enough to need the problem further delineated, these are injuries caused by people who do not understand the importance of peripheral vision. Until, that is, they compromise it by texting as they walk along the street and into lampposts, signs, bollards and other pedestrians.

Lots of Texts

Well it would seem that we Britons like our SMS text messages. At the last count we were sending one billion of them weekly!

Britons are now sending more than one billion text messages per week according to the latest figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

From the BBC.

Personally I am not a great fan of SMS in the main as I don’t like small phone keyboards, liked it when I could use it through my Mac OS X address book, but have generally either used the phone or e-mail.