Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project

#1

Post by spicavigo » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 6:47 PM UTC

Last Saturday, I made this app for sending SMS from your computer via your phone. It consists of an Android application and a Python GAE server. The source code is available on github. You can read more about it at [http://fauzism.com/post/37587975976/once-upon-a-saturday]a

Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project
fauzism.com

Re: Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project

#2

Post by xugle » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 7:34 PM UTC

You might say it's useless (in your blog post) but would it surprise you to know that there's a venture funded startup doing pretty much what your weekend project does (with extra bells and whistles perhaps).

http://mightytext.net/ <--- This one

Re: Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project

#3

Post by arihersh » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 7:38 PM UTC

This is very cool-- send text messages easily without ever leaving your laptop or having to deal with the phone's keys. For anyone over 30, texting from a real keyboard makes a lot of sense.

Re: Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project

#4

Post by spicavigo » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 7:41 PM UTC

xugle wrote: post #2

You might say it's useless (in your blog post) but would it surprise you to know that there's a venture funded startup doing pretty much what your weekend project does (with extra bells and whistles perhaps). http://mightytext.net/ <--- This one

Damn! Its quite similar. Thanks for the link :)

Re: Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project

#5

Post by osmotw » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 8:05 PM UTC

arihersh wrote: post #3

This is very cool-- send text messages easily without ever leaving your laptop or having to deal with the phone's keys. For anyone over 30, texting from a real keyboard makes a lot of sense.

Good for anyone sitting at a desk monitoring multiple social media and sms inquiries from sales contacts.

Re: Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project

#6

Post by espadagroup » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 8:17 PM UTC

Ha I actually pay for BrowserTexting, which does this. Mostly because I want to be able to text at work without having my phone out.

Re: Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project

#7

Post by CWilliams1013 » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 8:34 PM UTC

spicavigo wrote: post #4

xugle wrote: post #2

You might say it's useless (in your blog post) but would it surprise you to know that there's a venture funded startup doing pretty much what your weekend project does (with extra bells and whistles perhaps). http://mightytext.net/ <--- This one

Damn! Its quite similar. Thanks for the link :)

There's also DeskSMS, from the author of ClockworkMod and ROM Manager: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdut...

Re: Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project

#8

Post by lucaspiller » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 8:40 PM UTC

[Shameless plug] I also wrote one of these a couple of years ago. I wanted it to run entirely from the phone though rather than all my messages going through some third party. I ended up using Restlet (http://www.restlet.org/) as the server, and writing a client in Backbone (in the early days).

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.stackednot...

(I haven't touched it for a while, I don't even have an Android phone any more so no idea if it still works :P)

Re: Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project

#9

Post by readme » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 8:59 PM UTC

I was thinking of doing this exact thing, but I started another project.

Useless? I disagree entirely.

Having a place in the browser to text from is priceless. Perhaps the most obvious use case is texting without taking my phone out of my pocket? The next most obvious having a better and searchable UI to filter through texts?

It's a good project.

Re: Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project

#10

Post by habosa » Mon, Dec 10, 2012, 9:10 PM UTC

Did you use Google Cloud Messaging? If so, any chance you could post a tutorial or at least your thoughts on setting it up? There are a surprising lack of those around.