These days, most of public places, restaurants, shopping malls, stores have free wifi and at home or work, definitely wifi exists. We never have our texting feature turned on on our phones, we don’t need texting. I’m sure when our kids get older, they will need them and then, we will have to spend $30/month just for texting. For us $30/month = $360/year. You may not need the $360, but we don’t want to waste money.
Every person, businesses we know, they always ask us for phone number so they can text instead of calling. Yes, I know it’s a great feature, many people can’t live without. Yes, it’s the best silent communication. So, we have to get on with texting, but not on our phones.
I have Google Account, I have Google Voice and I can text from there and I have a phone number assigned to my account too. The only problem with Google Voice texting is you can’t receive images. It does notify to the email if you have text messages.
Since I have home phone with Comcast, I can text with my home phone # using Android or IOS devices. We have Android Thrive tablets, we can text from there.
Iphones 3 and Ipod Touches
I asked my sister who’s always up to date with gadget for an old iphone 3 (since she’s at 4s or 5 now). When I start to use iphone 3 for texting only, I realized it’s a very nice device but Apple really stick it to its customers by not allowing older hardware to use newer IOS. Well, I’m not on the bandwagon. I had to jailbreak the iphone 3 to get apps and games that are usable for iphone 3 . I got for my daughter a $100 used itouch 4 which has IOS 6 on it. It is the same as an iphone without the monthly bill. My daughter talks to her cousins using Face time daily for hours. They can text and talk as long as they have internet. It has to be the 4th generation with at least 16GB (I don’t know why anyone would buy 8GB version) to have facetime and all the great apps. Older ipods don’t have camera and can’t upgrade to IOS 6. IOS 5-6 have apps that allow us to take pictures and text them. Many big department stores like Macy’s, Target’s now have wifi for customers, we can use ipod touch 4th (camera-3rd gen don’t have) to take pictures of what we want to buy and text it to our spouse. I text and surf the net while waiting for my family shopping in Target without paying $30 for unlimited texting on my phone or $30/phone 2GB of data monthly.
The amazing thing about these texting devices and software is that they’re FREE and they work all over the world as long as they’re connected to a WIFI (internet) system. I used the old ipod touch to text while we’re in Cancun, Mexico. I’m texting and save money at the same time. One thing I think the people who are on the Apple bandwagon, are really in love with their devices, I looked at some used ipod touch 4th generation for my son and the people still want $150-$250 for the dead battery ipod touches while APPLE refurbished website is selling them with warranty and like new condition for $179… Hmm. Not all Apple users are well off and informed as I thought. If I don’t pay for texting 1 year, I can buy 2 of these refurbished like new plus all the accessories.
These are some ads on craigslist.
Cheers,