Features of biteSMS for iPhone Firmware versions up to 2.2.1

Here's some great extra features available in biteSMS, for iPhone Firmware versions up to 2.2.1:

Typing on a wide keyboard is so much easier! In landscape mode the text is bigger too.

Imagine you're browsing the Internet and an SMS comes in. With Quick Reply there's no need to quit Safari, start biteSMS, reply, and then return to Safari! Just reply straight away and keep browsing!

Works with any app, not just Safari. The little circle on the Send button shows you how many SMS messages you've written, and how you'll be sending it: pink via biteSMS and blue via Carrier. You can switch by holding down the Send button.

Browsing the Internet and suddenly remember you need to send an SMS? Send one with Quick Compose without quiting the browser – press Volume Up, then tap "Quick Compose SMS". Easy!

Works with any app.

Tip: you can use Quick Compose to quickly call someone without quitting the app you're in. First go to Quick Compose, pick a recipient, and then, instead of typing a message, tap "Call". Neat.

No SMS application is complete without smileys!

You can enter them easily too: just right-swipe over the text box and select the one you want from a list.

The privacy settings let you hide the sender identity and/or text of an incoming SMS, so people can't see them at a glance.

You can customise to only hide the text if you wish, or, for full privacy, hide the preview window altogether!

To forward or delete a message, right-swipe any conversation bubble and you'll be presented the option to Forward or Delete:

Right-swiping the text box brings up a menu. From the menu you can add a contact or your current location.

The location is added as a Google maps URL.

A character counter and credit counter are neatly combined into a single circular graphical indicator.

Typically each SMS message (and biteSMS credit) allows you to send 160 characters (unless you type a special character, switching the character set to Unicode, in which case you'll only get 70 characters).

The character and credit counter make it very clear how many credits will be used and how many characters remain for the text being entered. So let's look at how these work.

Before you start entering text, the circle is unfilled, meaning no text has been entered. As you start to type the circle begins to fill up in a clockwise direction. As you get closer to using all the available characters for a single SMS message a prompt appears and counts down, for example "20 left".

Once all the available characters for an SMS have been exceeded, the SMS credit counter in the center of the circle becomes "2" and the circle moves around again filling up the second credit.

Here are a few screen shots to help show this.

No text entered:

Only 12 characters left in this SMS:

Onto the second SMS credit, and only a few characters used, so plenty left for more text!

A number of applications, for example TZones Proxy Hack (from Cydia), install mobile carrier specific proxy settings on your iPhone so you can surf the web, check emails, etc. These proxy settings are honored by biteSMS, so you can also send SMS texts via a proxy!

The built-in auto correction doesn't work very well in some languages, for example in Swiss German, but it works great in other languages. So, on the biteSMS settings page you can turn auto correction on or off for each keyboard independently.

Here it's on for English, but off for German and Swedish.

When typing text in an SMS message you can tap in the bubble area and the keyboard will slide away, letting you read the conversation more easily.

Hold down the Send button for a second or two (until it flashes) to quickly switch from sending via the Carrier to sending via biteSMS, and vice versa.

Even More Features

More features coming soon, see the todo list on the biteSMS forums.