We have had several folks inquire about TXT Signal’s use on Apple’s iPhone. TXT Signal works well on the iPhone, because iPhone provides a more rich browsing experience. So, TXT Signal’s features are easily accessible and fully functional. There have been a report or two that some of the scripts we use for on-screen presentation (i.e., the fade effects) caused some issues, but it seems like a very positive experience.

This isn’t the only phone that we have tested. TXT Signal is accessible from most SmartPhones. It works fairly well on the Moto Q, though the scripting seems to have more trouble on the Q.

This is the feature that would empower you to send an email message from your phone to your txtsignal.com account (to a specific group or a specific team) and has been a feature that has been on hold for a little while.

The team had a productive discussion this week about how we might be able to deploy this feature. We have sketched out how we would do it and have some additional details to work out.

The interesting point about this feature is how web support is rapidly changing on the mobile platform. Improved web support would make accessing txtsignal.com a snap.

For example, Apple’s iPhone provides a true browsing experience through their Safari browser (and txtsignal.com works very well on iPhone).

Other companies –for the sake of competing alone– will be following suit, so the mobile browsing experience should greatly improve.

While these industry improvements are being made, we’ll be working on how to bring the relay feature to life.

New carrier Pioneer (Enid) Cellular was added.

New carrier United Wireless was added.

We get a lot of questions about the differences between TXT Signal and other text messaging services. Specifically, how our service is priced much more reasonable than other services.

First and foremost, TXT Signal wasn’t built to be a platform for two-way messaging. TXT Signal was built as a broadcast text messaging service. By definition, broadcasting is one-way…and TXT Signal serves the singular purpose of getting a message out.

Second, we don’t use pure SMS for TXT Signal because it can be very expensive. Please understand, we have a very wide variety of clients –from coaches of local youth athletic teams to large corporations. And though our firm does write custom applications that integrate pure SMS, including two-way messaging, campaigning, etc., we have designed the TXT Signal messaging platform to keep the price affordable for all our clients. Perhaps we could charge our larger clients more, but we have been very fair about our pricing and the features of each plan.

[Note: If you are interested in a pure SMS system, email us (support@txtsignal.com) and we can help you scope out what your requirements are and how we could help.]

Third, we have left it up to the user. You log in, you type the message you want, you decide who the message gets sent to and when it gets sent out.

With this flexibility, you can get the action you need. By simply including a call back number (e.g., 555-1212) in the body of the message, you can create an immediate”feedback loop”. Most phones allow the user to scroll to the number within the body of the message, press one button, and the call is connected. So a simple message like “I need some help from 4-10PM. Call me at 555-1212″ can be the most effective solution for a) getting the word out and b) getting action on what you want.

We are still working on some ways to deploy the Reply feature and other improvements that could mimic Pure SMS… without the cost. That will have to come in the future.