Go SMS Pro

A giant leap forward from the stock Android SMS client, Go SMS Pro is the latest offering from the Go development team, the folk behind Go Launcher EX and Go Weather. Go SMS Pro    Go SMS Pro Go SMS Pro: the inevitable conversation view (left) can be tweaked and tweaked (right) Apart from looking good, running smoothly, …

[Gangsta]

Not

The only problem is, the recipient/s of the message won't get to see the "wonderful" smileys - unless they are using an Android Device with GoSMS Pro. (although some clients on phones do a good job at translating " :) " to "post-icon" )

[Kristian Walsh]

If the recipient isn't using Android, they'll be fine...

Both Apple and Nokia's SMS clients convert text sequences like :) to graphics. Pretty much all current Nokias from the €30 ones upwards do it, and every iPhone does too.

The app itself looks nice, but it would be nice to see how it deals with MMS picture messaging.

[John Smith 19]

But the important question

Does it copy every SMS to the Chocolate factory?

[KJB]

Required title!

Installed just this morning after reading this article, its much much better than the likes of Handscent SMS; thanks El Reg!!

[dotslash]

great dev team

these guys are pretty darned good. if you have any issues with their apps or would like a new feature, just send them an email and it usually gets included in a later release - this is what has made this app so good.

also using their contacts app on my oxygen desire since the default Google contacts is pretty rubbish.

[shooi]

Sticking with Handcent for now...

Last time I tried Go SMS Pro, it didn't support basic functions like "Don't convert SMS to MMS" (for those of us who send long SMSs but don't have free MMS on our contract), and it wouldn't break out SMSs sent to more than one person into separate threads. For me, that's enough to put me off the App, despite all the other stuff which is really excellent.

[Dapprman]

You can configure it

I've just checked and there is a tick box option to split SMSs in to 160 character chunks (it's off by default)

[My Opinion]

All I can say is...

...that I hope the plethora of spelling / grammar / punctuation errors in the Valentine's Messages is not indicative of the quality of everything else.

[batfastad]

Threaded SMS

Does this have an option to completely disable threaded SMS?

That's been my biggest annoyance since switching to Android... that there was no way to have a regular SMS view or even change the group by/sort options (on HTC Desire anyway).

What annoys me the most is that it's not even threaded in the GMail "conversation" sense but grouped by sender in ascending date order.

So if you've not contacted someone for a month or so, a new message is deemed to be part of the same conversation.

Even being able to sort the grouped "threads" in descending date order rather than ascending would be an improvement. But the whole thing is generally annoying when you start getting 100+ messages per contact. Personally I would prefer to have the messages grouped by day or not at all, than by contact.

[Dapprman]

Nope

My last phone i disabled threading through a registry hack (was Win Mob 6.1) but later regretted it - these days I actually prefer the threads so not been an issue for me. Good job though as I looked through and no it won't let you turn threads off.

[batfastad]

Threads

Yeah I'm yet to find a solution for this on Android. Most responses usually go along the lines of "why do you want to?" or "just get used to it".

We seem to be in a world where it's encouraged to expose fewer options to end users and be stuck with UIs agreed on by board members or graphic designers (user experience technicians). I don't care about Fisher Price rounded buttons, bouncy Early Learning Centre icons or gradients. Just give me something that I can make work, the way I want it. It might be faster and use less resources and in turn energy, as well!</rant>

[Shakje]

Actually I think...

we live in a world where you can go into a shop, try out the phones you like before you purchase one, and if there's a particular feature you don't like ask the shop assistant if you can turn it off, or just look it up online, before you buy the phone. If you want something that:

1) doesn't have threaded messaging

2) doesn't have a fancy GUI

why not just buy a 3310? I can sort of understand where you're coming from, but I don't see how you can really complain if you bought the phone...

It's like me complaining because my Schrodinger Box(TM) doesn't have a cat in it.

[batfastad]

Yep

Yeah I know, I'm just being an idiot and having a general rant.

It's still a great phone and my experiences with Android so far are good. Would a 3310 let me connect via wifi or let me use TrekBuddy with all my 1:25k OS maps?

But being able to change the grouping of SMS would make this app a definite purchase for me. Combined with Touch Calendar and PowerAmp then all my slight annoyances with Android would be fixed!

Apart from bluetooth tethering, still can't do that unfortunately. Stuck with Wifi hotspot which uses more energy than bluetooth, or tethering by USB cable.

[Gary Holcombe]

Chomp?

Ive been using Chomp SMS now for over a year on Android and it already does most of these things, so whats the main functional differences between the two packages, apart from the little gimicks like the 73 Valentines Day poems???

[Paul Shirley]

Reg reviews always short on checking the competition

Does seem a bit lazy reviewing the 'best apps' if they don't make some pretence of comparing features with the closest rivals.

Last time I tried GO SMS it was even flakier than the built in SMS app and it just annoyed the hell out of me in general. But this is Android, where only the built in apps stand still and 'best app' is always a temporary thing. What I really need to know is: why should I switch from Handcent to this, why is it better than Chomp, what other competing apps are there?

The Reg review team need to up their game.

[Conor McKeown]

Is remeber something related to re-tweet

Point 4 of the Valentine's messages

[Moostache]

MIUI

I've used Handcent, then switched to Chomp. Have been keeping an eye on GO SMS but since switching to the MIUI ROM, am more than happy with their own SMS application (in fact, several of the MIUI apps are best in class for Android)

[Anonymous Coward]

@My opinion

Well, I was going to ask if it had a built in spell-checker (something that is clearly missing from virtually every SMS app that people currently use) ... but looks like that question is now redundant.

Seriously, with a "proper" keyboard (albeit on a touchscreen) there really isn't any excuse not to correctly spell and punctuate messages any more.

[Al Taylor]

@ batfastad

You can get a simple by-date view of your incoming and outgoing messages by swiping to the folder view and opening your in- and out- box.

[Dapprman]

ooh didn't know that

As I showed in my reply above, however how to you turn it back to threads - I can't seem to manage that ...

[batfastad]

Eh?

Do you mean in Go SMS Pro?

Or can you do that in the stock Android Messages program?

As this doesn't work on my HTC Desire but that could be because it's the HTC Sense Messages program rather than the stock Android Messages program.

[Bassey]

messaging limit

Can you set an inbox limit for your contacts with this app? This is the most useful feature of the in-built app (I have it set to 20) as it saves me having to laboriosly clear them out every once in a while.

[Al Taylor]

@ Bassey

No you can't.

While looking though I did come across an option to set up a blacklist of people / numbers you don't want to get texts from.

[Graham Jordan]

Love it

Having used Handscent for several months I switched to Go after wiping phone. Thankful for doing so to, in every single way I've found Go significently better.

Very happy with this, to the extend I'd even pay should I have to.

[Ian Yates]

Handcent

I've been using Handcent for over a year and just tried Go.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems to be 90% the same... I don't know who got there first, but the customisation dialogs are identical and the general inbox/conversation stylings are too...

I'm going to play with Go for a while, but I can't currently see any features that make me prefer one over the other... am I missing something?

[Adam W]

Chomp or Go

I used Chomp for a while last year, but after coughing up to remove ads, the ads then reappeared after a while. Go is better featured, and appears upon first use to be better in every single way than Chomp. And it's ad-free.

Also the pop-up notification on the standby screen, that allows you to reply directly without opening the whole app, is what the android messaging app should have had in the first place (at least on my X10i, anyway).

[Gary Holcombe]

You can....

You can already do this in Chomp. The message appears on your standby screen amd you can reply to it there and then without having to go into the full app.... maybe its different on your X10i to HTC?

[Tigra 07]

Someone, anyone?

I find it a bit worrying this app can install DRM from the access permissions.

What's the deal with that?

[Mike Cardwell]

Encrypted SMS

I prefer TextSecure by http://whispersys.com/. Allows you to send/receive encrypted SMS, and also uses public key cryptograhpy to encrypt SMS on your device.

[mdava]

Seriously?

WTF sort of texts are you sending that need encrypting?

[Admiral Grace Hopper]

Thank you.

That's the first time that I've wound up with the app being reviewed rather than an alternative suggestion from the associated comments thread. Good recommendation, thank you.

[Adrian Jones]

Had a play with this

And removed it.

It looks good, but until there's an option to move it to the SD card, it's not for me.

If you could add a comment as to whether an app can be installed on the SD card to your reviews, that would be helpful.

[Jim 15]

Looks good

Just downloaded it and it looks promising. I like the way that I can now set individual message alert options for different contacts. I couldn't do that in the stock droid message app.

[rhydian]

Tried it, but....

... It still suffers from the most annoying of android features.That feature is that you can't see a message's SENT time, only the time the phone received it. If, like me, you turn your phone off overnight or spent a lot of time out of coverage you end up with a slew of messages with no clue as to their relevancy.