For me, SMS is simply a way for the wireless industry to rob money from people. It really irks me that we have to pay as much as 20 cents to send or receive a single SMS or pay for a bulk package that we never really intend to use fully. So, I managed to live without it for few years.
But, SMS has its share of advantages. What if you wanted to talk to someone about something that is not urgent? You do not want to disturb them if they are busy. It would be nice to send an SMS to them asking them to call you when they are free. Email is another option. But people are inundated with so much email these days that they might never check your message soon enough. If you are like me, with an iPhone and most of the friends also using one, there are few things you can do to get SMS like feature for free. iPhone OS 3.0 introduced push notifications that alert a user similar to the way you receive an SMS. All techniques mentioned below use these push notifications as a way to get SMS like functionality.
1. iPhone to iPhone push messages : There are several apps like Ping! which are iPhone-to-iPhone messengers with push notifications. If you and your friends install the app, you can send your friend a message that basically pops-up a push notification that is as good as SMS. Some apps are free or you pay a dollar or two. But you never pay for a message ever again.
2. Twitter direct messages : If you and your friends use Twitter, there are apps that send you a push notification whenever someone sends a direct message to you in Twitter. For example, there is Boxcar that is free for one service. If you have the app installed, all you have to do to send an SMS like message is to send a direct message to your friend in Twitter.
3. Anything else you can think of with push notification : Boxcar also supports push notification for emails. Give your Boxcar email address to your friend and whenever he sends an email to that address, you will receive push message. Similarly there are several other use cases like growl push notifications app that sends a push notification whenever you get a growl message on your system. You can use one that suits your need.
If you have any other ideas, let me know in the comments ...
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