textPlus iPad App
Free SMS text messaging comes to the iPad with the ad-supported textPlus iPad App. Already popular for iPhone and iPod Touch users who refuse to pay AT&T’s markup for text messaging, textPlus for iPad provides users with mobile SMS texting capabilities in addition to group and community messaging. Released earlier this June, the early version of textPlus is heavily buggy, experiences frequent crashes, but remains essential for all iPad users as one of the truly free and simple text messaging iPad apps.
Text messaging in textPlus is simple. Message friends from your iPad contact list, manually enter a 10-digit phone number, or message established lists of textPlus users similar to Twitter’s #HASH tag messaging system. Note, additional features such as community messaging and sharing contacts across your other textPlus enabled devices does require signing in and creating a textPlus account.
On the receiving end, text messages come from a generic Gogii number (606) 110-02. While the number is generic, mobile phone users can still directly to your messages. Conversations appear in the standard apple iChat bubble box format similar to the iPhone’s message interface.
As a recent addition to the App Store, textPlus is a very buggy app. Adding users to your contact list is often met with errors. As I added my buddies onto the contact the list, the app crashed at least three times and once the add button stopped responding entirely. Restarting the app often remedies bugs, but frequent crashes are definitely felt widespread by textPlus users.
Yet, as one of the established text apps available, textPlus developers Gogii should eventually work out the kinks.
If you want to avoid ads, a $2.99 ad free version is also available in the iTunes store. As for the free version, textPlus will only get better with updates. Bottom line, textPlus is an essential iPad app that all iPad users should download.
