TextOne - an SMS replacement for iPhone and iPod touch

I recently started playing with an iPod touch. It a pretty useful device. I chose it over iPhone because I travel a lot and would go broke from data roaming charges. I don’t miss the phone calls, since there is Skype. But I do miss SMS, or rather something similar but cost-free. At just the right time my company, ProcessOne, released a cool and simple app just for that called TextOne.

Basically it’s a simple XMPP messenger. It works on the ejabberd server. What’s nice is that I didn’t need to register. I just typed my nickname, and since it wasn’t taken, I could start messaging to my friends that were already using TextOne. I just asked them their nicks. So, you can catch me under mfoss, if you ever wanted to drop a line :)

Another cool feature is multi-user chat. I occasionally swap a lot of SMS to get people organized for a party, I’m sure you know how much this suck. With TextOne I simply text all of them at once and a multi-user chatroom is created, for all of us to talk.

Finally, TextOne offers Push Notifications. On the latest iPod they even give a sound, so I tend not to miss them. I’d like to have vibrations too, though.

TextOne is still actively developed. Currently at 1.0.1, it’s a nifty little something to connect all iP users, whether it’s an iPhone or an iPod touch. The UI is nice and simple, there is no bloat, and it actually works.

What I would like to see added? Picture sharing, maybe file sharing. Avatar support would be nice too, but maybe in the way iPhone does it - defined by the owner of the contact list, not the contact user.

But even in this early stage it’s a very good version of what it should be :)

PS. This is not a sponsored article, nor an ad of my employer. I just really like the app. And I think you should try it too. More info and a link to the App Store at the TextOne page.