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Sending Images via SMS with Filepicker and Twilio

twilio.com

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Re: Sending Images via SMS with Filepicker and Twilio

#3

Post by toomuchtodo »

nightbrawler wrote: post #2

I got excited thinking that Twilio finally supported sending images... but all this article describes is sending a link to an image via SMS.

Google Voice barely supports MMS messages properly; I think it'll be a while before Twilio supports it (although I could be mistaken). If you're a Twilio folk on here, care to share roadmap?

Re: Sending Images via SMS with Filepicker and Twilio

#4

Post by ananddass »

It makes sense to pass files by reference rather than by value. This integration example would allow you to send files as urls via the SMS protocol instead of sending blobs of data.

Mobile network bandwidth is certainly a constraint in the US (cellular networks throttling high data usage subs is a proof of that). Viewed in that context pass by reference makes greater sense.

Re: Sending Images via SMS with Filepicker and Twilio

#6

Post by jf »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #3
nightbrawler wrote: post #2

I got excited thinking that Twilio finally supported sending images... but all this article describes is sending a link to an image via SMS.

Google Voice barely supports MMS messages properly; I think it'll be a while before Twilio supports it (although I could be mistaken). If you're a Twilio folk on here, care to share roadmap?

Author of the blog post here. We get a lot of requests for MMS and it's something that we're looking into. In the meantime, I wanted to let people know about how Filepicker could be used with Twilio SMS, which I think is a cool use case.

Re: Sending Images via SMS with Filepicker and Twilio

#7

Post by chime »

tzz wrote: post #5

I have been searching for MMS API provider, but couldn't find any. I was hoping this news is about Twilio supporting MMS but it is not. What is difficult about supporting MMS? No one seems to offer it.

Would it be possible for users to send an MMS to an email address instead of a phone number? I don't mean using an email client. I mean type in a@example.com in the field where one would normally type phone numbers. I don't have email on my iPhone and I often use iMessage to email pics to myself.

You might not get 2-way communication easily but it could be a good option regardless.

Re: Sending Images via SMS with Filepicker and Twilio

#8

Post by chris_vannoy »

chime wrote: post #7
tzz wrote: post #5

I have been searching for MMS API provider, but couldn't find any. I was hoping this news is about Twilio supporting MMS but it is not. What is difficult about supporting MMS? No one seems to offer it.

Would it be possible for users to send an MMS to an email address instead of a phone number? I don't mean using an email client. I mean type in a@example.com in the field where one would normally type phone numbers. I don't have email on my iPhone and I often use iMessage to email pics to myself. You might not get 2-way communication easily but it could be a good option regardless.

Send from MMS to email, certainly. It's all just email under the hood.

I use this as an input method on http://montabe.com, for instance.

But going the other way - sending an image via SMS/MMS to a user (which is what that post is about) - is a totally different animal. One in which you'd likely need to format specifically for different carriers and the like (and that's best case).

Re: Sending Images via SMS with Filepicker and Twilio

#9

Post by theyCallMeSwift »

chime wrote: post #7
tzz wrote: post #5

I have been searching for MMS API provider, but couldn't find any. I was hoping this news is about Twilio supporting MMS but it is not. What is difficult about supporting MMS? No one seems to offer it.

Would it be possible for users to send an MMS to an email address instead of a phone number? I don't mean using an email client. I mean type in a@example.com in the field where one would normally type phone numbers. I don't have email on my iPhone and I often use iMessage to email pics to myself. You might not get 2-way communication easily but it could be a good option regardless.

Yeah, this would be super simple to build using SendGrid (which you could say is the Twilio equivalent for email). For example: http://sendgrid.com/docs/Code_Examples/ruby.html

Re: Sending Images via SMS with Filepicker and Twilio

#10

Post by theyCallMeSwift »

chime wrote: post #7
tzz wrote: post #5

I have been searching for MMS API provider, but couldn't find any. I was hoping this news is about Twilio supporting MMS but it is not. What is difficult about supporting MMS? No one seems to offer it.

Would it be possible for users to send an MMS to an email address instead of a phone number? I don't mean using an email client. I mean type in a@example.com in the field where one would normally type phone numbers. I don't have email on my iPhone and I often use iMessage to email pics to myself. You might not get 2-way communication easily but it could be a good option regardless.

In fact, here's a pull request for the necessary changes. https://github.com/jpf/filepicker-twilio-example/pull/1/file...
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