Tag: sms

Schedule messages on Android

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Happy to see Google messages getting schedule messages at long last. Its been a long time in coming after Gmail’s schedule send last year.I have been using the beta and enjoying sending messages at 1am for a quite some time now.

Be great if Signal also added scheduling, although I did buy tasker to solve the scheduling of text and signal but haven’t sat down and played with it yet.

Whats that? Peer pressure?

Whatsapp on a phone

I recently came back from mobile roaming in Sarajevo; its been a while since I’ve been to a county where data roaming wasn’t as straight forward as its become. Even doing the standard replying to the automatic text didn’t work. (Although this isn’t about roaming data, although I have a long history when it comes to international roaming data).

It was kinda weird the assumption that everyone would be on Whatsapp. I understand the limitations of text messages and the greed of the mobile operators in the past around MMS and EMS, has crippled its use. Especially at 50p per message when internationally roaming on EE.

My colleagues ask over and over again, why am I not on Whatsapp? To be fair many others have asked the same question. So here’s some of my reasons.

  1. I simply don’t trust Facebook (owners of Whatsapp); I removed FB from my mobile devices and only put the lite version of messenger with all its permissions removed (inlcuding contact access)
  2. I read the Whatsapp End User Licence Agreement, a few years ago and then didn’t  agree with the terms especially around who they share the metadata with. I assume its changed but I don’t see a compelling reason to do it again.
  3. I don’t trust Whatsapp’s security implentation of Signals end to end message encryption; and is it all mute if Whatsapp is sharing the metadata anyway?
  4. This isn’t just because its FB; I don’t use Googe Allo either. I use certain systems for certain things. I get for most people Whatsapp is their ICQ but the benefit isn’t enough to make me use it.
  5. I don’t like the net neutrality issue, with certain mobile operators giving it priority over other services.

End of the day, everyone needs to make their own decision based on real information; not on social & peer pressure. Happy for you to be on Whatsapp but I won’t be joining you.

No more Google SMS notifications for events

phonesauri

Important: SMS notifications not available after June 27th

Starting on June 27th, 2015, SMS notifications from Google Calendar will no longer be sent. SMS notifications launched before smartphones were available. Now, in a world with smartphones and notifications, you can get richer, more reliable experiences on your mobile device, even offline.

Shame because I got use to text messages 30mins ahead of a event as a sign I should go. However they are right, notifications especially since I have the Pebble smartwatch are good enough now.

New Services I’ve found interesting recently

I’ve been playing with a few services recently and I thought it might be worth blogging about…

  • Diigo.com
    while moving away from delicious I found diigo did everything I needed a whole lot more.
  • Ifttt.com
    also posted about if this then in a previous post too but I’m finding nice new ways to use it for example to get read items on my kindle back in a form I can blog about again.
  • DeskSMS
    Not quite installed this yet but I’m very tempted because I’ve always wanted a way to manage text messages from more than my phone and it looks like DeskSMS might be the best way to do so. Although a lot of people swear by Mighty text too
  • Glos.si
    I read about Glos.si in the Lifestreaming blog, and decided I’d give it a shot because its been quite some time since I’ve really played with a decent lifestreaming service. The one I host on my own blog is alright but is missing quite a few of the great stuff Glos.si or the old fav’s Sweetcron and Storytlr had. This also reminds me I should kill all the other lifestreaming services I’ve used in the past
  • Storify
    This has always interested me but its only now I’ve gotten around to looking at it with some time.

Some problems I would love could be solved

A couple of things which I keep running through my mind, which I think is best shared.

  • The problem of moving RSS feeds, or The saga of RSS (dis)continuity as Jon Udell calls it. Its a much bigger issue than simply using Server redirects. For example the BBC WorldService sites have upwards of 100 RSS feeds and there will be more. Then imagine your on a shared host, how would you setup server redirects? No, no there needs to be a much better solution?
  • International single short code SMS codes, is there such a thing? If your a radio programme talking to the world, how do you inform your listeners of how to text in? It would be a nightmare to read out multiple text numbers and is it even possible to text a UK short code number from another country? Hey and even if it is, how much would it cost the audience member? Email still seems to be the best option but not all mobile phones fully support it. So what's the solution?
  • Convincing software makers that there previous versions should be given away (with no support) or made open source (community supported). At least Propellerhead Software knows how to do things correctly. Propellerhead Software, makers of Reason, have discontinued development of their Rebirth synthesizer simulator software. It is now downloadable for free.

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