SMS length on iPhones

[ndpitch]

When I send texts to other people with iPhones, if I go over 160 characters, the whole message comes through as one message. It doesn't get split up into separate ones like it does if I send a long text to a blackberry.

As far as the new character counter is concerned for iPhones, what is its purpose? Is it only for you to know when you've reached the limit when sending SMS to other phones, like blackberries?

Is that a feature of the iPhone, or AT&T maybe?

 

[maddux2005]

The purpose of it is for 2 reasons

1. For people with limited texting plans to know how many they are sending
2. When you send a long for ex. 300 character text, it will split it up if your sending it to a regular phone that isn't an iPhone.

That's the reasons I would gather it's there. Some people may wanna know if there message will be split up for several reasons.

Personally I won't be turning on character count, no reason for it.

 

[Mliii]

I use it when I send texts to people without iPhones and for folks with phones which restrict text messages to the 160 character limit. That way, if I am sending them a message longer than 160 characters, the message gets sent in proper sequence making it a lot easier for them to read.
Prior to this, if I would go over 160, sometimes, they would get the later sections of the text message first making it hard to understand and respond.

 

[John T]

When I send texts to other people with iPhones, if I go over 160 characters, the whole message comes through as one message. It doesn't get split up into separate ones like it does if I send a long text to a blackberry.

Oddly enough, I've jut exchanged texts of 380+ with a mate who has a Blackberry and none were split - could be a network thing?

 

[RafaelT]

Oddly enough, I've jut exchanged texts of 380+ with a mate who has a Blackberry and none were split - could be a network thing?

I believe some phones are smart enough to figure out when texts are part of the same message and automatically rejoin them. It still counts as more then one text though.

 

[zeeflyboy]

Oh cool... I never knew that setting was there!

useful for when you are abroad and don't want to send more than one text's worth at a time!

 

[FSMBP]

From what I've noticed:

If you're both on the same network; it shows up as one message (but you'll get billed for multiple messages).

If you send it over different networks, it splits the message accordingly.

 

[scaredpoet]

It's a function of both the phone AND the networks.

The network (both sending and receiving) needs to support SMS concatenation, and the receiving phone needs to be able to recognize a concatenated SMS as well.

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

 

[pvmacguy]

Text messages being split up is indeed a phone management and also a network management. At&t's network will combine your messages and have them come in as one on the recipients device on At&t. Verizon has two separate 160 or so character messages come into their devices.