Newbie text and voice command questions

[dwallbaum]

Gentlefolk;

The FAQ didn't like my search strings, so please forgive the newbie questions that have been asked and answered a thousand times before. Referral to the appropriate thread will not be considered rude.

Just got my first Droid - HTC Incredible 2. And I just found out that I have a 160 character limit on the Verizon network...something I had not encountered before when sending texts. Is there a way around this..using another format MMS? Or if Im texting on Verizon, I am stuck with 160 characters? Reason I am baffled is I was using a Walmart Nokia phone on the Verizon (I assume...) network and was not bitten by this 160 char limit.

Next: Is there a list of the verbal commands supported by this phone? There is nothing in the phone documentation. The sales rep demonstrated a few, but I am sure there is a list somewhere.

Thanks!

Don

 

[bassjason]

Not sure about the first part of your question, but here's a list of voice commands:

Voice Actions for Android

 

[takeshi]

Some phones automatically break up your messages. IIRC MMS does not have that limit.

 

[jhumbo]

SMS (simple messaging service) is limited to 160 characters. That's simply how it was design and how it always has been. Many newer phones will let you type longer messages and then with break it up into multiple SMSs without you realizing it. Similarly they will piece together the messages on the receiving end. I used to have a phone that did not do this and it was very obvious when you'd receive message from someone with a phone that did do it. You get 2 or 3 messages right after one another and they would be cut off in the middle and then pick up in the next message.

MMS (multimedia messaging service) was developed later with the ability to send longer messages and include pictures and other sorts of attachments. Some carriers charge more for MMS. Not sure what Verizon does. Also, I'm not sure how you force the phone to send long texts as a single MMS instead of multiple SMS. Is there a way to do this on the Droid?

 

[dwallbaum]

Thanks, jhumbo..very helpful. So, the crux being: what does the iPhone do? Disassemble/reassemble? Before the Incred2, I was using a Nokia text only phone (not a smart phone by any means) and I did not have this character limit..or if I did, it was invisible to me.

 

[jhumbo]

Not sure, but reading up online for a couple minutes just now it seems that this varies between the 3G iPhone and the iPhone 4. Apparently the 3G iPhone would send a single MMS and AT&T's network would keep it together if it was going to another AT&T subscriber, but it would get split up into multiple SMS if going to another carrier. From what I'm reading, it sounds like the iPhone 4 always splits it into multiple SMS. But maybe that has something to do with Verizon vs. AT&T. :blink: