Another way to save money with your iPhone: texting through AIM

Written on July 14, 2008 – 10:08 am
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

An iPhone 3G doesn’t come cheap, in fact, most monthly plans are pretty expensive. Yet bloggers are constantly writing about ways to save some money with the shiny object - such as VoIP calling (and not having to buy an iPod or GPS system). This morning I stumbled on a money-saving plan that concerns the most unfairly priced mobile technology of our time: SMS texting. It’s ridiculous how much we have to pay for transferring such a small amount of data. If we had to download a song from iTunes for SMS data costs, we’d pay €3,770 (based on calculations by Sam from a gthing science project).

So I don’t know about you, but I welcome every possibility to take away some money from this billion dollar SMS business. Here’s one:

Download and install the free AIM client from the App Store.
In your IM client, create a new contact whose AIM address is a plus sign and the mobile number of the recipient, such as “+31641510902″.
Start texting away by looking up the new buddy on your AIM software. He or she will receive a SMS text message, yet the reply will end up in your AIM client.

Just so you know, this also works with an iPod Touch.

I hope you like that post!

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aim, im, iphone, ipod touch, shiny object, sms, texting, tips

About the author: Ernst-Jan is blogger and co-organizer of BLOG08, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five. Follow him on Twitter or read his personal blog Dutchproblogger.com .

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7 comments/trackbacks to “Another way to save money with your iPhone: texting through AIM”

Aug 14, 2008: What made Twitter do it: the essential difference between sms handling in Europe and US
[...] What about twittering per email or via mobile web (For iPhone users there are tons of solutions to work around SMS). I hope you like that post! The Next Web Blog covers start-up news from all over the world (not [...]

By Patrick de Laive on Jul 14, 2008

That is pretty cool. I also hate the prices of any telco for voice, text and data. They are just outrageous. Of course they have to earn back the investments they have made for building the infrastructure, but 10 years ago I payed 10 cents (guilder cents, which equals 4.5 euro cents) per minute of voice, now it is 10 euro cents. Same story with SMS. it only has become more expensive in stead of cheaper.

I think the governement should interfere here and give everybody a free dataplan on their mobile :)

[Reply]
By Sarah on Jul 14, 2008

Great! Now the only thing we need is a iphone version of this site ;-)

[Reply]
By Vincent on Jul 15, 2008

Just tried this, but I get the error “Unable to send IM, +316….. is unable to receive offline messages”. Anyone got this working, or is it only for US users?

[Reply]
By sam on Jul 26, 2008

iPhones aren’t the only phones that can do this. Most other phones can actually run IM programs in the background, making them a far more realistic option if you want to really cut down on your sms messages.

[Reply]
By Farishta on Jul 28, 2008

just do this +1316…. always add 1 after the + sign

+ 1 (insert area code and cell number)

[Reply]
By save money on Nov 24, 2008

I love HTC more then iphone.

[Reply]

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