While playing around with Meebo and JiveTalk on an iPhone, I started thinking about the iPhone's SMS capabilities. As you probably know, you can use iChat on a Mac to send an SMS message to an iPhone, and the iPhone can reply to that message. (The messages count against your iPhone's SMS allotment.)
I wondered how to do it the other way - send an SMS message from my iPhone to iChat to initiate a session. I've tried searching the Web for help, but all I find are articles about iChat-to-SMS messages, not the other way around. Why would you want to send a text message to someone on iChat? The main reason is that a recipient only has access to iChat. (Practical? Probably not.)
The problem is that when you start a new SMS message, you can't just enter the recipient's user name in the To field. You have to use either a mobile phone number or a valid short code. Enter a user name and you get an error message (I don't know if the error message counts against your monthly allotment).
Instead, you need to enter a code into the To field. Then in the message box, type username: (the recipient of your message) followed by your message. Here's how it's done.
In the To field, type 265010. In the message box, type username: and then your message. Tap send.
The message was received on the Mac using iChat. However, the response from iChat is seen as a different message on the iPhone. In the picture below, the response is listed above the message I initally sent, labeled with a new code (we can use this code number later).
Tap to open the response that came from iChat.
When you open the response, your messaging session will be contained in that particular session. You don't have to keep going back out to your Text Messages list to see follow up messages.
Next: Another way to SMS to iChat.
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macjmillsx
July 23, 2007 at 5:58pm
I got a SMS spam message on my iPhone from 265-060.
It reads as follows:btvYTrhUYN36687: (using AOL IM) Get piece of this stock OTCBB: FDKE DICT(NAME); Find out what all the fuss is it'll be $5 before end of the week
I am pissed!! apparently this method is great for spammers to rape your iPhone and eat up your text messages with crap.
How do they get your mobile number?
Roxanne
October 28, 2007 at 8:46pm
We ahve recieved at least 6 text messages with the same message different company. The hone company is charging us 30 per text and the only way to stop this is change our number or block all texts meaning we cant send or recieve photos. This sucks since we are paying for these services in ourcalling plan.Any suggestions. Also why is this number the same as the one who called you? There are 6 different IM addresses
THE RESAERCH I HAV DONE ONLINE SAID THIS IS A SCAM TO TRANSFER FUNDS ELECTRONICALLY FROM YOUR BANK ACCOUNT. WHERE DO THEY GET OUR NUMBERS FROM?
PEZ
September 11, 2007 at 7:57am
Some of us at my company got this exact message - though, it was from a different AIM/iChat user. Obviously, since AOL is now free, this cannot be (or will not be )easily regulated.
Though, if you read the message, the first line (before the "aol identifeier) it gives you the screen name of the person.
Though, the real question is, where DID they get the phone numbers?
Its obvious, they were from a sign up at some point - many people use their cells as their only phone.
Scott
July 27, 2007 at 4:34pm
Not sure of another way to initiate SMS from the phone to iChat, but there's a much, much easier way to initiate from iChat or AIM.
IN iCHAT or AIM:
1. Start a new chat.
2. Enter the phone number of the person as +1(areacode and number) so for example +13125551212
3. That sends to the phone and you can go back and forth. And the number always works so you can add it to your buddy list.
Anonymous
August 06, 2007 at 5:21pm
I have not been sucessful in this. While I use to be able to do this on my old phone, once my wife and I got iPhones we could not AIM/iChat to them from our desktops. The interesting part is that the iPhone will send SMS to our AIM/iChat account - the window pops up with the message, but when we respond we get
"AIM error: The person is not currently online"
Anonymous
August 09, 2007 at 8:18pm
I get the "The person is not currently online." error too on iChat, but on a non-iPhone Verizon mobile number.
However, my co-workers have been getting this error with various people. This problem did seem to pop up after I started using an iPhone, but it also could have been due to a recent security or system update...
Is anyone else having this problem?
SacemanSpiff
July 13, 2007 at 9:58am
Just for fun, I gave it a whirl. Sure enough, my number was 265-060. It makes me think there must be some hidden numbers in the mix that would allow them to use such a small id number.
Frank
July 12, 2007 at 5:08pm
Are you sure that the number remains assigned to the particular iChat user for good? The reason I'm asking is that AIM assigns numbers when a user sends you a message using the mobile IM feature of AIM and you can reply to that message as long as you keep talking to one another. However, if the person stops sending you messages then after a certain period of time passes (not exactly sure how long but I think it is greater than 20 or 30 minutes) if you try to respond it will give you a message saying the person is no longer available to receive.I guess what I'm wondering is if you have been able to send a message to this number a day later or something like that.
Frank
Roman
July 12, 2007 at 8:03pm
That's one of the questions I want to ask Apple. It was one of the reasons I turned off my iPhone and let it sit for an hour. I wanted to see if the number got reassigned, cleared, etc. But it didn't, and it worked.
Also, I used a number today that I got yesterday, and it worked.
You raise a great point. I should denote in the article that I'm working on verifying the validity of the number. Hopefully, I can confirm/fix this soon.
rloyola
July 12, 2007 at 8:41pm
I finally confirmed that the numbers are temporary, but I haven't found out how long they last. More to come. I updated the article appropriately.
Frank
July 12, 2007 at 11:12pm
I figured this was a similar system to the one used by AOL. Also, judging by the length of the number, unless something was being done behind the scenes to append your phone number to the six digits we see then there is no way it can be permanent since it would top out at 1,000,000 numbers.It is strange that it lasted overnight. I have never seen the AIM ones last for more than perhaps an hour.
There may be another solution to your problem however which includes access to a lot more IM features (buddy lists, etc.) via SMS. Check out this pdf:
http://aolmobile.aol.com/pdf/AOL_Mobile_IM_Services-Full_Service_Mobile_IM_User_Guide.pdf
Those two lines above should be together as the URL for that pdf.
Hope this helps.
Frank
rloyola
July 13, 2007 at 11:14am
This is exactly what I was looking for. I need to work on my Google search skills. Thanks Frank!
