Why are text messaging packages so expensive? Trick question – everyone knows the answer is because the phone company wants to make an insane profit, as texts cost them next to nothing, and nearly everyone wants to be able to text so they will buy the unlimited plan. We’re grandfathered into a plan that’s no longer available – 200 texts per month for $5. There is only one other option through AT&T and it’s unlimited texting for $20. Oh how I wish we could afford that (scratch that because even if we could afford it I refuse to increase my monthly $122 bill by an additional $30) because it’s so annoying trying to make sure I don’t exceed the limit every month.
I end up using three different texting apps which is annoying. I’ve got the regular messaging app that I use for my friends who have iPhones since iMessages don’t count as SMS texts, I’ve got Google Voice for texts between me and my brother and sister in law, and then I have a third “free text” app to keep in touch with Joe. The reason I don’t use Google Voice for all other texting is because their app seriously sucks ass. It breaks texts up into separate conversations, it doesn’t always alert me when a text comes in, and I often have to exist the conversation and re-enter it to clear out the notification once it does.
As for the other text program, I’ve gone through a few recently because the one I was perfectly satisfied with for the past year, WhatsApp, decided to mysteriously stop working one day. None of the texts I send to Joe ever went through after the one day when it stopped working and no amount of uninstalling and reinstalling made a difference. So I moved onto IMO but that one started behaving strangely as well and wouldn’t always alert me of an incoming text. We tried going back to an older program from a couple of years ago, Text Plus, but the notifications on it was spotty as well.
For now we’re sold on eBuddy XMS. The interface is clean and it always alerts us of incoming messages. As a bonus, I can log into the app via my web browser and send Joe texts from there when I’m sitting in front of the computer instead of having to type on my phone’s keyboard (which I suck at and will never master) and all his responses go to both the web version and my phone so I can see them if I walk away or shut down the computer. My only complaint is that I can’t use the text alert noise with the app, or shut off the noise it makes when I first enter the app to look at a new message. But considering all that went wrong with the other apps that is small potatoes. I just hope this app doesn’t decide to mysteriously stop working one day too because we’re running out of options (Trillian, which we also tried, was the worst. We couldn’t even see one another online even though we were both logged in).
By the way, if anyone knows of an app that works well with Google Voice please let me know. I’ve tried a few with no success. The notifications wouldn’t work at all. What good is a texting app that doesn’t notify you of a new text?