# iPhone, SMS, & sending photos



## infinityBBC (Dec 19, 2008)

i'm one of those guys who refuses to pay extra for SMS when AT&T advertises their "unlimited data" plan and then charges extra for texting.  so i had AT&T cut my SMS services OFF.

i've discovered the email-to-phone workaround for sending to another phone's SMS which even works for photos, but the folks receiving have no way to reply or send me photos.  does anyone know of an easy way to do so for folks who do not have internet on their phone?


i also just recently discovered from my friend who also has an iPhone who uses SMS, that he cannot even send/receive photos!  apparently, the iPhone SMS won't support this?  what a crock!  why is it that everyone else's phones do this, but not the iPhone?

i'm very glad now that i decided to not use SMS, for i'd be extra pissed if i was paying for a service that doesn't even work like it should.

i guess i'd just like to better understand what is going on with all this.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Dec 19, 2008)

The iPhone doesn't (natively) support picture messaging (only text-based SMS).

http://stuff.tv/blogs/iphone/archive/2008/09/15/photo-messaging-finally-comes-to-iphone.aspx

Apparently there are 3rd-party applications that add this functionality.


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## infinityBBC (Dec 19, 2008)

thanks for the info, i'll share it with my friend who have an iPhone who use SMS.  i have to wonder why Apple has chosen to not support photo messaging.

but what about getting around SMS entirely?  i know i can already send a photo or message to a friend, regardless of their phone, by using the email-to-SMS protocol.  as most are aware, every telco has a particular address (ie: phonenumber@txt.att.net) which allows emails to come up sort of as if they are SMS messages.

is there any way that folks can reply to someone who sends messages/photos in such a way without the recipient having SMS?

in other words, one can send email to SMS, but can it work the other way around?


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Dec 19, 2008)

Hmmm... I really don't think this would be possible (easily) with the current state of the iPhone.  Email-to-SMS is pretty easy, as you state, because the carriers have methods implemented that make this easy.  The other way around, though, not so much.

A lot of carriers allow you to send an SMS message and have it end up in someone's email by formatting the message as [email address] [space] [text message].  Here's a list of carriers and their formats:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_gateways

Still, if someone sent you an SMS via their email, then to reply to their SMS message and have it end up back in their email box, you'd have to format the message correctly.  It kinda kills the "ease of use" portion of doing that.


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## infinityBBC (Dec 19, 2008)

thanks for all the info!

a couple more questions for ya:

1. in the "Carrier-provided SMS to email gateways" section, i don't understand exactly what to tell my friend to actually do to get her T-Mobile phone service to send an email to me from her SMS:
  a. there is a "SMS to Email Gateway Number" (which is "500" for T-Mobile USA) -- where does this number go, or is it moot?
  b. where does she input the data: "<emailaddress> / subject / text" -- does that all go into the normal text field, and is the subject mandatory to get it to work?
  c. are there supposed to be spaces on either side of the slashes, or is that moot?
  d. i presume it's possible to send a photo this way as well?

2. as far as trying to make it more "simple", is it not possible to save the "SMS to Email Gateway Number" and/or the email address (or whatever is necessary to make this work) into my contact info on her phone, so she just has to pick the appropriate means by which she would send me an email from her SMS?


again, thanks for all the help with this!  if i can figure out how to make this work, i will certainly share it with other.


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## ElDiabloConCaca (Dec 19, 2008)

I would think that the "SMS to Email Gateway Number" is the phone number to send the text message to.

The specifics I don't know about.  I don't know if spaces are mandatory between the slashes, nor do I know if the subject line is option or required, nor do I know if it will also work with picture messages.

I say just play around with it a little.


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## infinityBBC (Dec 19, 2008)

cool, thanks man... i'll just call T-Mobile and ask them!  ;-)

i'll post what i find here so others might be able to benefit from this as well.


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