Sent an SMS, it changed to MMS???

[jeni1072]

So I typed a long text to someone, and she replied "sorry I can't see what you sent, remember I have an old phone and can only get sms texts" I was like huh? So I looked again and sure enough at the bottom of my text it has the MMS with the arrow inside the circle, and when I tap it, it "plays" for five seconds?? What is that about? Is it because its such a long message?

Bueller?

 

[JudH]

Yes. Each SMS msg can have 160 chars. I think the stock app will auto break long messages up into a multi-part msg up to five SMS msgs--at char 801 it will auto convert to MMS. Third party apps will have different settings (Chomp is still going at 10--it may not convert at all) or have a setting that controls when/if the conversion happens.

 

[jeni1072]

ok so I need to just change the setting somehow? Any idea what that would be?

 

[JudH]

Don't think you can change the limit in the stock msg app--you?ll need to switch to another app. Chomp doesn't appear to convert to MMS at all. Someone said Handcent has an option in settings.

By the way, if the person doesn?t have MMS there is a good chance they don?t have unlimited SMS either--they won?t appreciate receiving 10+ messages--still billed as 10 even if the app on the receiving end auto combines them. Have you considered sending an email for those long messages instead? Push email like GMail will arrive about as fast as SMS (assuming they have wifi or data enabled) and won?t cost them $2.