Textie – Free SMS From the Creators of Tweetie

From the creators of the award-winning (and now official) Twitter client Tweetie, comes Textie. A new, free and visually pleasing way to send short bursts to people, on the move.

At its heart, Textie does just as the name implies, providing a free and user-friendly way to send texts or short messages to your friends and family. In order to use Textie on your iPhone, you’ll first need to register for a free account. This is a pretty painless process, simply involving you surrendering a valid e-mail address and creating an account password. Once created, you can immediately start to send texts to your friends or family.

There are two ways in which you can send these texts. The first is via a registered e-mail address. When you first register Textie, you obviously assign yourself a ‘base’ e-mail address at which people can contact you. Tapping ‘Settings’ and then ‘Account’ though will then allow you to add more on your account. Adding a new e-mail address to your account really couldn’t be easier. You simply tap ‘Add My E-Mail Address’ and this will bring up an input box allowing you to type your e-mail. Hitting ‘Save’ will result in a verification code being sent to said e-mail address. In order to verify that address you simply have to tap the link provided in the e-mail, and enter the verification code into Textie, as given.

Once verified, your new address will show up under ‘My Verified Addresses’, and giving this address out to people you know will allow them to alert you in Textie, just like they would using a phone number. For the lucky in the US, Textie also provides texting services as normally provided by network carriers, phone number to phone number, ad-supported – free of charge. Unfortunately, Textie doesn’t currently work with phone numbers in the UK and other countries internationally, however they say they’re looking into securing ways to make this happen while keeping the service free, and of course, you can still text people using your registered e-mail addresses, in the meantime.

After you’ve sorted out the address or phone number at which people can text you, you’ll want to send a text. To do this you just tap the compose icon in the top right of the app, and the compose screen pops up. As noted by the app itself at this point, Textie will allow you to send a message to another Textie by selecting their e-mail address or phone number (US-Only), and if the address you choose isn’t yet registered as a Textie user, Textie will simply send your message as a short e-mail.

I like this. This essentially means that the person you are texting will never miss out on what you’re saying, just because they’re not registered with Textie. Also, this feature lifts that slightly annoying requirement of other similar apps, Ping! for example, which results in both users having to install the app, in order to chat.

The app’s compose screen is split up into three main sections. The first is the address bar, allowing you to put in the address you want to text. The second is the actual compose box, and the third is ‘Add a Photo’. Tapping this nicely designed button to the right of Textie’s compose box will allow you to add a photo to your text, from your iPhone’s photo library. Did someone say free picture messaging?

As you start a conversation with someone, it is immediately added to Textie’s ‘Messages’ screen – and with the ability to receive a push notification whenever a new message arrives, Textie kinda shows Apple’s stock ‘SMS’ app up.

Textie comes in two versions. The first is ad-supported and available on the store for free – I have to say, the ads, which are powered by Fusion – look gorgeous. If you’re anything like me and have a good eye of interface, you probably won’t want to turn these off.

However, if you just think they’re just plain damn annoying, showing up generally after every 3 messages or so, removing them is as simple as buying the ad-free version for $1.99, via an in-app purchase. To do this, under ‘Settings’ tap ‘Turn Off Advertising’ and then ‘Buy Textie to Turn Off Ads’. This will launch the in-app purchasing console, and ask you to login to your iTunes account to complete and confirm your purchase.

Overall, I have to say I like Textie. While I thought the compose screen wasted a little space visually, Textie effectively renders the stock SMS app and its accompanying carrier texting plan, useless. Textie’s ability to load previous messages and push current ones, in most cases, replaces the stock SMS functionality completely – and Hey! – It’s FREE. The only question is; Will it come to iPad?

If you’re a texting kind of person, I definitely recommend you give this a shot. Feel free to text me using Textie, you’ll find me at arron@rfly.me.