Infinite SMS ends the text messaging rip-off. Sort of

February 12, 2009 | Anthony Ha | Comments | |

More and more people are picking up on the fact that SMS text messaging is a scam — VentureBeat writer MG Siegler complained about the text message rip-off in the iPhone 3G pricing plan last June, and even The New York Times has looked at accusations of carrier price-fixing. There have been some applications offering workarounds on the iPhone — such as SMS for Free, which lets you send, and only send, a text message from your email account — but they’re not very satisfying. Now a developer called Innerfence has released the Infinite SMS app, and it offers a reasonable if imperfect solution.

Basically, Infinite SMS plugs into Google Talk to send messages (something which that instant messaging service now allows). Once you’ve activated the app and logged into your Gmail account, it works almost exactly like normal text messaging on your end, and it looks like a standard iPhone SMS exchange, too. The message recipient, on the other hand, gets a text with your Gmail address explaining what’s going on, then they can respond as normal. (The text comes from a 406 area code number.)

From that description alone, you can probably guess what some of the major drawbacks are. For one thing, you have to give your Gmail address and password to a third-party application, which I was instinctively less-than-thrilled about. The results are wonky if you’re also logged into Google Talk on your computer; in my case the responses my friend sent were apparently swallowed by the Internet — if you’re the kind of person who’s always logged in to Google Talk, Innerfence recommends creating a special account just for text messaging. The biggest drawback is the fact that the app isn’t allowed to run in the iPhone’s background (a problem for a lot of apps that Apple will hopefully fix soon), so it has to be on for you to see your messages, which eliminates one of the big advantages of text messaging.

Ultimately, Infinite SMS lacks the convenience of normal SMS, but when I compare a one-time 99 cent fee (the cost of the app) to paying much more money month after month, it becomes awfully tempting. At least until everyone has a smartphone and uses email or instant messaging instead of text messages.

Infinite SMS maker Innerfence is a bootstrapped startup based in Seattle. Its other products include an app for turning your iPhone into a credit card terminal.

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About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

  • titocosta
    Our mobile web application btexty allows to send text messages as well as multimedia messages, internationally, starting at 1 cent per message. We think that low prices per message avoid spam and abuse and allow us to cover our operating expenses to run the service. Furthermore, you will never see banners and mobile advertisement on btexty.
  • delbarcelona
    I have tried the app for a couple of days now and I like it a lot. I have tried other methods in the past including AIM, Yahoo, as well as other apps designed for the sole purpose of 'free' texting and no one came close to the real thing. This one app looks and behaves a lot like the regular SMS app on the iPhone. My biggest complaint was the fact that it would not notify you of an incoming message unless the app was open. Nonsense for an SMS app, right?. Well, if your iPhone is jailbroken there is a little app called Backgrounder that can do the trick. That will fix one of iPhone's biggest problems and now you can have as many programs as you like running in the background when you exit them. Including of course Infinite SMS. Now you will be notified of any incoming SMS regardless of what program you're using or if the iPhone is off, in sleep mode, home screen, etc. The sound for an incoming message is the same as the regular text message app and you will see a red dot in the Infinite SMS icon with the number of new/unread messages. The program works so well that I will call AT&T to cancel the text messaging plan.
  • (Former) Infinite SMS User
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>DON'T TERMINATE YOUR TEXTING PLAN!!!<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

    Unlimited texting for only $0.99? Boy, was I wrong! There had to be a catch, and here it is...

    It's a scam! Don't buy it (if still possible): Google has recently shutdown the app and rendered it useless!!! (I kid you not, search for Infinite SMS in iTunes... Can't find it? Exactly...) The recent "free update" is a simple shutdown code imposed by Google... No warning, no "we may shutdown this service in __ days," NOTHING! Not even the App's company gave any warning whatsoever. The other day in fact, I was just giving some feedback on the app at the company, Innerfence's, website in order to suggest new improvement updates that they said that they will distribute in future updates. Guess they're not coming at all.

    IF ANYONE IS YOU KNOW HAS THIS APP AND IS CONSIDERING OR HAS ALREADY DROPPED THEIR TEXTING PLAN, TELL THEM TO KEEP THE PLAN OR SIGN UP FOR A NEW ONE SINCE INFINITE SMS IS NO LONGER FUNCTIONAL... MEANING NO MORE FREE TEXTING AT ALL FOR AN INFINITE AMOUNT OF TIME (unless of course you waste your money on another "unlimited/free" texting app that'll shutdown on you eventually)

    >>>>>>>>>>>>>DON'T TERMINATE YOUR TEXTING PLAN!!!<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
  • Inner Fence
    Infinite SMS official shutdown announcement:

    http://www.innerfence.com/google-shuts-down-inf...
  • It was not really a rip off. Google was paying for the text messages. Text messaging is never free