MySMS -> SMS Character Counter, Forwarding and more on iPhone 2.1

Ever wonder why your iPhone doesn't have a character counter while SMS-ing and you always end up exceeding the max 160 characters and sending more than 1 message? Wanna delete individual messages instead of the whole conversation? Message forwarding? MySMS has the answer for you! Available on Cydia and I've just installed it the other day and have tested well on it to write my own Personal Review.

It comes in 2 versions: Free/Demo and Paid version. What's the difference? Well, first of all the paid version cost you USD4.95. Besides that, the Demo version has the full functionality as the paid version except

1) you'll get a reminder you're using a demo version
2) 20% of the messages that you text will have a delay of 30 seconds

On the Springboard, your icon will look like the screenshot below. Paid version will have a blue tint on the icon instead of orange...or is it yellow? Arghh...I'm colourblind...sorry :-p

App icon on Springboard

The launch splashscreen

Before going into the detail of the SMS functionality of the app, let's look at the customizations offered in the Settings. From sorting of contacts to the skin of the texting UI, basically you can configure most of the stuff here. One thing to note is the option for the "Phone number length". This is useful if you've saved all your contact numbers in the format of "0123456789" (Malaysian mobile phone number btw) instead of "+60123456789". By decreasing the "Phone number length" to 10, MySMS will ignore the preceding "+6" of the contact numbers and therefore, the app will recognize your contacts based on the format that they're saved. Nice touch there...and you don't have to edit all your contacts, adding "+6" in front of every number in your Contact list.



If you have trouble understanding the info of each toggle available, just tap on "Help" and all the explanations are there :-)



And if you like the app so much, you can even set it as the default SMS client on your iPhone.



The main SMS UI of MySMS is almost identical to the stock SMS client available



By tapping on each individual SMS, you can choose to Delete it, Forward it to other contacts or to Call/Save any numbers in the message.



And voila!! First time on your iPhone....SMS in landscape mode!!! Should you find the keyboard in the default portrait mode is too small for your big thumbs, you can tilt it sideway and now you'll have everything in landscape mode :-)

SMS in landscape mode :-)

And from the screenshot below, you get character/sms counters in text edit mode. I'm sure this answers the prayers of many iPhone users :-p

Character/SMS counter -> Nice touch :-)

All in all, MySMS looks promising as a standalone SMS client, fit enough to replace your stock one.

My final personal verdict:


Pros
Lots of customizations available
Landscape mode
Message forwarding!!
Character/SMS counter in edit mode!!!
Demo version has full functionality


Cons
Full version not free
Irritating reminders asking you to register
30secs delay on about 20% of the messages you send
Scrolling of conversation history still not as smooth as stock SMS client



Cheers