Tag: sms

Coronavirus – Emergency government texts being sent

If you’re in the US, you’ll probably be familiar with emergency broadcast messages. However, here in the UK it’s rather unusual to receive a text with an emergency update. These, though, are not “usual” times. Today all mobile networks will be sending out emergency messages to keep everyone …

Changing networks – Text to Switch Explained

Today marks the start of a new method of changing networks. For all too long people here in the UK have had to call the infamous “Retentions Team”. They will try lots of things to keep hold of you as a customer. Sometimes this process has a good …

The landline and text messaging. Both officially dying.

A weirdly intriguing set of stats from Ofcom have just landed and it confirms a lot of our suspicions regarding how people live and work with mobile technology. First, let’s have a look at the amount of outgoing calls that people are making from that funny phone-shaped object …

Wait, you’re still using the standard SMS app? Time to change!

Most people, if they haven’t already switched to something like WhatsApp, will still be using the standard text messaging app on their Android phone. This is a bit pants for a number of reasons. First, if you want to send picture messages (MMS) then it’ll cost you a …

SMS integration to be removed from Google Hangouts.

According to an email being sent out by Google, Hangouts SMS integration will stop working after May 22, 2017. The company will presumably roll out an update on the day that will disable the SMS integration functionality on the app. Google will start showing an in-app notification to …

New tougher mobile laws live today for drivers

Whether you’re a new driver or a more experienced one, it’s really worth paying attention to this. From today, if you’re caught using your mobile phone at the wheel in the UK, you’ll get 6 points on your licence and a £200 fine. New drivers who have passed …

EU Shock-free roaming now just months away. But..

Let’s put aside the “Trump” business and all the #Brexit news shall we? I’m here to tell you that being part of Europe is a good thing.. for your phone bill. Whilst we in the UK are part of it, roaming charges are no longer a problem. From …

Facebook Messenger Now Does SMS

Are you someone who lives in Facebook Messenger? Would you like to spend even more time in the app? Well after the latest app update, you can now set Facebook Messenger to be your default SMS app (if you are on Android). For now iOS users can’t set …

Google Hangouts losing SMS

Remember Google Talk? Well all those years ago when Android first launched it was the simply the instant messaging app. To be honest I don’t think take-up was that big, but over the years Google Talk was replaced with “Hangouts”, and we all got used to calling and …

18,000 Android Apps spy on your SMS messages

Not something we usually consider as mobile phone owners, is that question of “Where did my application come from? What platforms does it use?” Both questions tie into: “What permissions does my applications require?” Sadly we rarely think of any of these questions, therefore we put our trust …

Texting and driving. Try it. You’ll crash.

I’m not totally sure how this video has gone viral suddenly, because it’s around three years old now. Anyhow, this happens all around the world. Nobody is perfect and I’ve seen drivers across Europe, America, China and here in the UK doing it at the wheel. The familiar …

A Texting Aid for Drivers – What is this madness?

You can’t text and drive… Texting and Driving is Dangerous so you shouldn’t do it….ever…..so imagine our surprise when we received a press release which seems to promote an app to make texting easier whilst behind the wheel. Available in the App Store now, the “My Phrases” keyboard …

Want to text from your phone without touching it? Try MightyText

You’ll have seen services like this before I’m sure. Oh and yes, I’m sure there’s a great deal of you who use Google Hangouts or WhatsApp to keep in touch too, but MightyText seems to have a rather slick solution if texting off your smartphone is becoming a …

Tell the spammers to PPIs off

Hello, it’s me Gears. Call me Leigh. I’ve had the man flu for a month solid and this is perhaps the first article I’ve written without tissues (steady), so you may notice an ounce of exuberance in this particular missive. Spam. It’s a pain in the flippin sausage. …

Google+: Auto Awesome movies & SMS Hangouts

In an event held today by Google in San Francisco several enhancements have been announced to Google+. First off the block was the Hangouts app.  The most requested feature enhancement for Hangouts has been the inclusion of SMS into the hangouts app. This has now been confirmed as …

Do you text in sick? You’re not the only one

We’ve had an email from a company called Intercity Telecom. They’re trying to get us to mention their Orbit system, which lets you access your desk phone, mobile, instant messaging and email all in one place. A lot of companies do this, but they add a survey in …

Google Hangouts – now featuring SMS?

The dust is settling after the rather long keynote at Google I/O yesterday and as things start to rollout we can start to examine things in a little more detail. One of the big enhancements to the Google ecosystem is the rehashing of Google Hangouts. This unification of …

Choose when and where to send texts – ZMS

It’s 20 whole years since the first text message was sent and, despite data-enabled phones and always-on email, we’re still sending a huge amount of texts. Tech start-up “inZair” has just launched an app called ZMS. It’s completely free and available for both Android and iOS. The texting …

MightyText – Like iMessage, but better

What is it ? This app will sync your text messages to other devices and it’ll even connect your texts to web browsers so that you can send and receive texts from the comfort of your own browser. It’s completely connected to your phone number, so there’s no …

Doro phones to include Tweakker provisioning

Remember Tweakker? The idea was simple. If you stick a new SIM into your phone, Tweakker steps in and sets all that APN / MMS business so that you can get browsing on your Android handset pretty quickly. It’ll setup your iPhone too, just browse to their site …

Google get rid of some more dodgy apps

Google once again have had to remove some rather unpleasant apps from the Android Market. These apps seem to be pretending to be apps based around popular apps with “young people” i.e. Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Twilight or strangely Horoscopes (do people still believe these?). The user installs …

Coolsmartphone Recommended Android App – SMS Backup & Restore

SMS Backup & Restore lets you backup and restore your sms messages! This could be helpful for many reasons, you could be swapping phones, you could have a new phone, you could have recently reset your phone or you could have installed a custom rom to your phone. …