Sometimes, while communicating on your Symbian Smartphone, you might need to send the same text message to multiple recipients. While the built-in Symbian messaging app lets you compose a text message and then allows you to add multiple recipients from your address book contacts, there is currently no way that you can add separate recipient information like name, phone number, street address etc.
This is where Message One comes into the picture. It is a small but useful tool that lets you compose a text message that can be sent to multiple recipients, automatically including corresponding contact information from your address book, including names in the template so that each recipient can receive this message as it was addressed only for them.
Message One is developed by Wireless Labs Technologies and can be purchased from their website for €4.25. The developers also provide a trial version (limited to send only 5 text messages at a time) that can be downloaded by clicking here.
This application is compatible with all Symbian Smartphones operating on S60 3rd edition platform and a list of all compatible devices can be accessed from the description webpage.
I used Nokia PC Suite to install the application on my Smartphone and then opened it by going to → Main Menu → Applications → Message One.
This process further opened a message composer screen asking me to add recipients by clicking on ‘Options menu’. Opening the options menu displays a list of all the available options with ‘Add Recipient’ option at the top.
Clicking on this option displays a list of all the contacts in your address book that can be chosen by marking the checkboxes in front of each contact.
After I had selected the recipients to whom I wanted to send the message, I clicked on the ‘OK’ button that again directed me to the message composer screen where I could review the recipient list. Then I clicked on the ‘Next’ button that further allowed me to insert the template into the message field.
Now, clicking on the ‘field’ button allowed me to add a field into the inserted template. The app currently supports 16 fields which include first name, middle name, last name, mobile number, home number, street address and much more.
It is very important to insert a proper field in the template according to the contents of the message, for example while sending a ‘happy new years message, first name and last name should be inserted first followed by mobile number, street address and so on.
I could also view the composed message anytime by selecting ‘preview' from the options menu. However the preview includes only the name and address of the first added recipient. Then I again clicked on the options tab and selected the ‘Send’ option to send this message to all the selected recipients.
Message One comes in quite handy when you want to send a quick message to multiple recipients and at the same time also want to add corresponding contact information so that the same message can be forwarded and addressed to different contacts.
The app is easy to use and can be configured within a few minutes. This not only saves your precious time but also relieves you from the effort of manually composing a text message for every contact.
While using the trial version for several days, I did not face any major problems, apart from being limited to send only 5 text messages at a time. But users who want to add more recipients need to buy the licensed version which is priced at just €4.95.
Overall, it is a great tool for text messaging fans and I highly recommend it to all my readers.
SOURCE: Wireless Labs Technologies