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

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.