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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat Apps
With today's release of AIM4.6b1.1131, the capability has been added to allow AIM users to send SMS messages to mobile phones. All you do is type the message you want to send as an SMS into a new IM window and change the screenname field to +16175551212. Replace 6175551212 with the phone number of the SMS-capable mobile phone. The "+1" is the country code, which is required; however, I don't think AOL supports non-US numbers yet, but they do plan to.

To utilize this cool feature in iChat, simply type Shift-Command-N for a "New Chat with Person," and enter the phone number in the above format. When you send the message, you'll receive confirmation from AOL that it was sent. Pretty neat!

[robg adds: Indeed, and very cooly, this worked as described in testing with my Nextel/Motorola phone. Now I can send myself reminders of things to forget later directly from iChat!]
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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: gitmach on Jul 02, '03 01:35:47PM

What would be great is a command line interface to this. Anyone know of anything like that?



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: WildWest on Jul 02, '03 01:44:01PM

where did you get this AIM version from? I downloaded the latest version from the AIM site and all i got was version 4.5.995, not 4.6b1.1131 as stated in the original post. And this trick does not seem to work with my version...



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: imshane on Jul 02, '03 03:56:38PM
This hint refers to the Beta version of AIM located at http://www.aim.com/get_aim/mac/mac_beta.adp

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Re>> Send SMS messages to mobile phones from Terminal
Authored by: soulrider2k on Jul 08, '03 01:23:10AM

https://sourceforge.net/projects/phpsms/

---
soulrider2k



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Command line/Email access to SMS
Authored by: whom on Jan 30, '04 07:02:40PM
You can use an email bridge to the SMS system if you want scriptable or command line access to SMS.

For example, if you have sendmail enabled:

% mail 8005551212@mobile.att.net

where 8005551212 is an att wireless phone number. You could also write a an applescript that controls Mail to send mail that way (using osascript )

This method requires that you know the carrier's email gateway.

A link is provided below with common carrier email gateway addresses.

Note: Keep the email under about 120 characters or it might not make it (SMS limitation: "Short" Message System)

http://www.weblinkwireless.com/customerservice/how2send/

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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: below on Mar 15, '04 08:00:37AM
Here is a litte script to do the job. If anyone updates it, please let me know!

#!/bin/sh
# I got my wisdom from http://rsvp.atsites.de/stories/storyReader$194
# Apparently, iChat wants it that way
	osascript<<DONE 
tell application "iChat"
	repeat with a in (every account where id is "AIM:$1")
		send "$2" to a
	end repeat
end tell
DONE
Save this to a file (like "sendmsg"), `chmod +x sendmsg`, and send your messages with `sendmsg below€mac.com "This is a message to you"`(of course, use an @ when you really want to send something)

Have fun

Alex

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Why not use ichat2cell
Authored by: drsoos on Oct 05, '04 05:36:18PM

From ifthensoft.com
Its much more elegant



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: pobs on Jul 02, '03 01:44:35PM

2 questions regarding this...

1. Can the receiver of the SMS reply... I tried it but we couldn't get the reply form SMS-phone to iChatA/V

2. Can we add SMS people to buddy lists?

Cheers,

pobs



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: swamiswami on Jul 02, '03 01:46:35PM

Yes, you can reply - just tested it on my Nokia phone thru AT&T. The reply showed up pretty much instantaneously in iChat.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: Elian on Jul 02, '03 02:06:16PM

iChat/AV beta works for this--messages get sent, and I could respond OK (albeit awkwardly) from my Motorola POS phone. However each of the two messages I sent to the phone had different receiver numbers, so I don't know that you can originate a conversation from a phone.

iChat/AV also offered to add the phone number to my buddy list, though I don't know if that works as I didn't bother trying.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: seancorfield on Jul 02, '03 04:49:51PM

Neat tip. However, I couldn't get reply to work. The reply number claimed to be a 6-digit number (265 060) which of course fails :(

---
"If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive."
-- Margaret Atwood



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Reply works but address is coded
Authored by: spudly on Jul 02, '03 08:53:52PM

indeed the address is a 6 digit [250 620] number with a space in the middle. but i replied to it and it worked...no sooner did i press OK to send the message than my iChat received the reply...amazingly fast!



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Reply works but address is coded
Authored by: seancorfield on Jul 05, '03 05:08:21PM

Yeah, I tried to reply but got "Message not sent" :(

---
"If you're not annoying somebody, you're not really alive."
-- Margaret Atwood



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: MacMuse26 on Jul 02, '03 06:39:30PM

Reply support depends on your mobile carrier. My limited tests show that SprintPCS Vision cannot reply, while Verizion can.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: rusto on Jul 02, '03 06:58:40PM

It depends on your phone's model/firmware/software version as well: my Verizon/Moto V60 does not offer a "reply" choice while a friend's T720 does.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: appletag on Jul 07, '03 09:12:31PM

I was able to SMS my LG VX10 (on verizon) and reply to iChat. I saved the addresss on the phone. I used the saved address to send an SMS to my iChat user. SO...my phone can receive and initiate chat sessions FWIW.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: cfc2004 on Sep 22, '04 07:25:59AM

well whats the crack



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: Tepepa on Jul 03, '03 04:04:50AM

Sorry, you cannot reply.
You cannot send SMS to iChat
but you can add buddies with this format:
+(prefix) tel. num.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: mac-rob on Jul 04, '03 12:40:07AM

Sending from desktop to phone should work with most major US carriers including Sprint, TMobile, Cingular, Verizon, AT&T Wireless, and Nextel.

Replying from phone to desktop will work with Verizon and AT&T Wireless. Hopefully support for more carriers will be possible in the future.

Initiating from phone to desktop is not possible at this time, regardless of wireless carrier.

---

BTW, don't let the odd 6-digit sender number confuse you. This is a "short code" used by the SMSC to route messages to/from an application on the carrier's network. Conceptually it's similar to a TCP/IP port. A temporary, unique short code is assigned to each incoming screen name on a rotating basis and is used to route reply messages back to the sender (only on networks which support replying - currently AT&T and Verizon).



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Send SMS messages but CANNOT save "buddy" number
Authored by: filips on Jul 19, '04 03:15:31PM

YEs, works great, but I cannot save the +1xxxxxxxx format as a user name to my iChat so it is useless if each time I have to whip out my phone and type in the telephone number again... anyone figured out how to do this yet?



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t68i + t-mobile
Authored by: flaminio on Jul 03, '03 10:13:14AM

Can't seem to reply via T-Mobile and my T68i. Anyone else?



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t68i + t-mobile
Authored by: SoapmakerX on Jul 03, '03 01:18:49PM

Seems like T-Mobile can not respond with a T68i, but AT&T can respond with the same phone.

That bites for us T-Mobile peeps :(



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t68i + t-mobile
Authored by: unseelie on Jul 10, '04 12:32:53PM

Works for me via T-Mobile with my t610.



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t610 + t-mobile
Authored by: seajay on Jul 09, '04 08:46:50PM

Reply works with t610 + t-mobile. Must be the phone.



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Tested with Fire
Authored by: mzarra on Jul 03, '03 01:29:02PM

And I was able to send messages to my phone, don't know about the reply though since I am on T-Mobile which failed.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: pdm on Jul 03, '03 02:01:45PM

This works from Fire.app as well.

Yahoo IM also has a SMS messaging feature in their PC client but not Mac. Anyone know the special format they use to send it via SMS like AOL does? the +1### doesn't work for YIM.

The Yahoo info is at http://messenger.yahoo.com/messenger/wireless/

---
-pdm



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: datafirm on Jul 04, '03 04:42:32AM

This does not work with cingular phones :(



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: paulskinner on Jul 07, '03 05:34:15PM

Works with Cingular to my t68i.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: Glial on Sep 07, '03 10:48:46PM

This DOES work with cingular phones.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: aalegado on Dec 20, '05 07:20:17AM

It worked with my Motorola V551 using Cingular. The message on my V551 sad I could reply to the message. When I sent a reply it appeared in the iChat window from which I sent the original SMS message. It would be possible to carry on a chat session albeit very slowly from the cell-phone side of the conversation. Very cool.

I initially had problems sending because I had my security setting set so that I could only be seen by people in my Buddy List. The error message returned by iChat told me exactly what the problem was so I fixed it and was able to send the test message.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: uroffi on Jul 04, '03 04:50:21AM

I just tried with my AT&T mobile , it works , and it's really fast
(wheter i'll end up thumb-ing my way to an IM via cell phone...it's still not known...)

:)



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Privacy Preference Problem
Authored by: bfrancis on Jul 04, '03 12:19:52PM

I keep getting the following error dialog when I try to send a text message to my phone number.
-----
Your privacy preferences are set so they prevent you from communicating with this person.
-----
...any suggestions? I've already switched my privacy settngs to reflect:
Privacy Level - Allow Anyone
TRUE - Allow anyone to see that I'm idle.

...and it made no difference.



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Privacy Preference Problem
Authored by: miahyahu on Feb 24, '05 11:42:14PM

If you Allow Specific people and add the phone number (+1.....) then you can send.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: mozart11 on Jul 04, '03 03:34:29PM

this only works i assume if you're on a modem dial up connection? Or does it work on DSL also? cable modems?



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: kbaskins on Jul 05, '03 06:46:36PM

This worked fine using my cable modem.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: Aqua_Geek on Jul 07, '03 11:53:00PM

Worked fine to my AT&T phone. I have DSL.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: hughesc1 on Aug 12, '03 03:51:58PM

Forgive my ignorance but does this only work in the US? I have tried using in Canada to no avail.

Thanks.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: kps on Jan 01, '04 02:01:43AM

Worked for me, on Fido (Microcell). Didn't try to reply.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: cballrthal on Aug 15, '03 09:25:38AM

I sent to my Nokia phone with Verizon service and I was able to reply right back to my computer. really cool. I think Verizon has a hookup with AIM.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: deloshan on Feb 18, '08 11:59:00PM

i want to send sms



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: mindviz on Sep 30, '03 08:37:49AM
The best solution to this is to use a service called AI-Buddy.com, which will not only forward your instant messages to your mobile phone or device (via SMS) but will also allow you to get check your buddy list from your phone as well as send instant messages from your phone. Works with all phones and mobile devices that have SMS capabilities.

Another neat feature is you can stay online 24/7 because it is a hosted service which is ideal for using your AIM account with your phone, finally I can turn my computer off and still instant message :)

check it out, AI-Buddy.com

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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: bluehz on Feb 25, '04 04:40:48PM

Is it possible to send images via this method? I have tried everything to get some images onto my Motorola v60t (Cingular) (with media center) and nothing works (short of paying some service. I know the phone accepts ringtones and backgrounds....



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: wozzie on Jul 12, '04 05:46:14AM

SMS won't do pictures - for that you require MMS (M is for Multimedia). The ringtones and screens, as well as contact details and configuration messages are 'special case' SMS message types that are not intended for use as general purpose non-SMS communications.

Depending of course on your handset, Bluetooth, IR or humble direct connect are your only men for getting pictures of dog, gf/bf, child, etc on your phone.

BTW, this AIM gateway no workey in Ireland, there's a good chance that it's probably just being used in the US at the moment.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: Tastannin on Jul 13, '04 04:16:43PM

There's no need to know the carrier of the phone you want to send to - just append the cell phone nbr to @teleflip.com and Teleflip automagically routes it to the right carrier.



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Works on Verizon
Authored by: jwoolson on Jul 26, '04 08:59:25AM

Verizon SMS to and from iChat AV (v2.1, v153) works very well on an upstate NY (Buffalo exchange number). It takes less than a second lag time to send and receive messages in either direction (phone to iChat and iChat to phone). I am able to carry on a full two-way conversation with a definite advantage of a QWERTY keyboard making a huge difference. I can see an advantage for txtmsging in some situations of boredom, extreme noisy environments, avoiding roaming charges, or situations that require some discretion. Neato!

---
Jonathan Q. Woolson
Louisville, CO 80027



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Works with Adium, too...
Authored by: dogboy on Oct 05, '04 02:31:00PM

Even better, in fact; you get this message to tell you what you did:

"Your IM has been sent to my mobile device. When I receive it, I will be able to reply. Thanks for your IM! Want your IMs forwarded to your phone? Click here"



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Works with Adium, too...
Authored by: viceer on Feb 19, '07 08:00:37PM

How much does it cost the recipient per sent? Per reply?



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: anonhintsrg on Apr 27, '05 12:38:29PM

iChat 3.0 in Apple Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger now supports the ability to retain phone numbers on your buddy list.



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retain phone numbers on iChat buddy list
Authored by: msb on Feb 07, '07 11:03:09AM

Can someone tell me how to retain phone numbers on iChat buddy list?



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Four years later, still doesn't work quite right
Authored by: kupietz on Nov 16, '07 09:47:24PM

When I send messages to a certain friend, a few minutes later, Fire spits back, "This person has chosen not to receive text messages on their mobile device. To learn more about Mobile IM, click here." But she does receive the message. She can't reply, though.



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Send SMS messages to mobile phones from iChat
Authored by: ccsccs7 on Jan 04, '08 09:27:05PM

That would depend on the carrier and the user's plan. It could be free if the plan includes unlimited or a large bucket of text messages, or it could range from 5-20¢ per message.



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