T-Mobile WTFs



  • If you use the online "send a webtext" function, it's limited to sending ~700 characters (Split over 5 SMS messages).  Once your message hits this limit all keyboard functionality is lost - you can't type, you can't delete, you can't even use the cursor keys! If you want to edit anything you have to select some text with the mouse, right-click, cut, and then press a key to update the number of characters box. (you can't use CTRL+X as thats disabled too).

    Then you go to send the text and get "The submit is invalid". Check the phone number - it's OK, and last time I heard sms texts didn't refuse certain characters. Check through the text to make sure anyway and it looks ok. Then click Send and get "Your session has expired, you need to login again". 

    Argghhh! 

    At least it'll make sure I don't forget my phone next time... 

    And why does asking for your allowance via text on your phone append the text "For balance information, text BA to 150", rather than just including the balance? "Your balance is £10.26" or whatever is shorter than the message telling you how to retrieve your balance! Why do they need two options anyway? Just send them both in the same text and scrap the other option for gawds sake (and then of course when you ask for balance information, it appends "For allowance information, text AL to 150". Sheesh...)

    [/rant]


  •  Do they charge for the balance info message? That would explain a lot...



  •  No, texts to and from that number are free. 



  • I'm on an unlimited text plan with T-Mobile, although through the website I find I am limited to 9,999,999 messages. I think that's just not on....! :-)

     



  • @Mole said:

    last time I heard sms texts didn't refuse certain characters
     

    I think they use 7-bit ASCII, but can't remember where I heard that.

     

    Also: aaaeeennnn@tmomail.net.

     

     



  •  Wasn't T-Mobile also the one that had that little data storage issue a few months back?



  •  @MeesterTurner said:

    I'm on an unlimited text plan with T-Mobile, although through the website I find I am limited to 9,999,999 messages. I think that's just not on....! :-)
    and if you try and use even 1% of that limit, the "fair usage" policy kicks in, the same as the "unlimited internet".



  • @scgtrp said:

    @Mole said:

    last time I heard sms texts didn't refuse certain characters
     

    I think they use 7-bit ASCII, but can't remember where I heard that.

     

    Default is 7 bit (160 chars), but there is the option for 8 bit or UTF-16 which reduces the length of the message to 140 or 70 characters respectively. W


  • Garbage Person

    @Nyquist said:

     Wasn't T-Mobile also the one that had that little data storage issue a few months back?

    Actually, that was Microsoft's subsidiary (through acquisition, not creation) Danger, which makes the Playskool My First Smartphone that is the "TMobile Sidekick" range and operates the backend infrastructure behind it.

    Story is that Microsoft bought Danger to get some talent to add some trendy Smartphone 2.0 stuff to Windows Mobile - and then after the acquisition was complete, they took one look at the talent and source and infrastructure, said "Shit. We just got taken."  and proceeded to ignore them with a mind to carpetbomb the company once their carrier contracts expire. And then, of course, their infrastructure fell RIGHT THE HELL apart, and the utter lack of even the most basic backups was discovered.

    And this shit acquisition is why Windows Mobile 7 is so fucking late to the party and not nearly as good as it should be (though when you get down to it, Windows Mobile is not and should not be a trendy Smartphone 2.0 system - it's a business and productivity platform through and through - just like CrackBerry. Add an Application store so people realize they can actually develop fucking software for the thing, and pull the SDK out of the expensive version of Visual Studio and make it a damn addon to VS Express.

     <== Hardcore Windows Mobile user. At the end of the day, I like it more than any Droid or iFail faggotry anyone cares to offer. Why? Because my data is my data which makes it my responsibility. Period, end of story. I can make phone calls, it doesn't crash (Windows Mobile has an unfair reputation for being unstable because operator customizations bugger it up so hard. A reflash to a bare WinMo image (or better, the reference image from the handset manufacturer, with all of THEIR customizations, but not the carrier's) is not difficult and makes a world of improvement.



  • @Weng said:

    and pull the SDK out of the expensive version of Visual Studio and make it a damn addon to VS Express.

    Wait what? Last time I developed for WinMob, you had to use a free version of Visual Studio called "eMbedded Visual C++". Now they've rolled it into the paid version of studio? Strangely enough, at the time there was no free Visual Studio "express" for writing ordinary Windows apps.



  • @Weng said:

    <== Hardcore Windows Mobile user. At the end of the day, I like it more than any Droid or iFail faggotry anyone cares to offer. Why? Because my data is my data which makes it my responsibility. Period, end of story. I can make phone calls, it doesn't crash (Windows Mobile has an unfair reputation for being unstable because operator customizations bugger it up so hard. A reflash to a bare WinMo image (or better, the reference image from the handset manufacturer, with all of THEIR customizations, but not the carrier's) is not difficult and makes a world of improvement.

    Hey Weng,

     I used to have a PocketPC 2000 way back in the day before it was called WindowsMobile.  I haven't used it for years. If you are a current user and advocate, maybe you can tell me if they have now solved my biggest three gripes with it:

    - Lefthanded use. There was no way to move the scrollbar to the left, making it all but impossible to use in any application that required one.

    - When I removed the batteries (or they ran out), it would lose all its settings and come back on at factory default, even my appointments, contacts and such would be gone.

    - Syncing files, contacts, appointments. This only worked if you had the correct version of MS Office. No way to get at your Appointments or Excel-mobile files without it.

     Thanks if you reply.



  • @RogerWilco said:

    - When I removed the batteries (or they ran out), it would lose all its settings and come back on at factory default, even my appointments, contacts and such would be gone.

    Well I can answer this one. The new pocket pcs use flash mem and ram instead of just ram, so this problem is gone.



  • @Thief^ said:

    @RogerWilco said:

    - When I removed the batteries (or they ran out), it would lose all its settings and come back on at factory default, even my appointments, contacts and such would be gone.

    Well I can answer this one. The new pocket pcs use flash mem and ram instead of just ram, so this problem is gone.

    Well, at least that's an improvement over my E-125 Since when did they do this? I found it a very silly design to not ever have this. Yes my PocketPC had a back-up battery, but that would drain very quickly if the main battery died, it was only meant to keep the RAM alive during a battery swap. I had a 64MB compactflash card in it, but you could only save the pocket-office files there, not the contacts, appointments and such.

    I was always amazed that they didn't put in a few MB of flash to store the volatile data and in the end regetted to not have bought a Palm instead, despite it's much lower specs. I ended up going with a Nokia smartphone when the Casio PocketPC lost all my data for the 4th or 5th time. It still sits at the bottom of a drawer somewhere.



  • @RogerWilco said:

    @Thief^ said:

    @RogerWilco said:

    - When I removed the batteries (or they ran out), it would lose all its settings and come back on at factory default, even my appointments, contacts and such would be gone.

    Well I can answer this one. The new pocket pcs use flash mem and ram instead of just ram, so this problem is gone.

    Well, at least that's an improvement over my E-125 Since when did they do this? I found it a very silly design to not ever have this. Yes my PocketPC had a back-up battery, but that would drain very quickly if the main battery died, it was only meant to keep the RAM alive during a battery swap. I had a 64MB compactflash card in it, but you could only save the pocket-office files there, not the contacts, appointments and such.

    I was always amazed that they didn't put in a few MB of flash to store the volatile data and in the end regetted to not have bought a Palm instead, despite it's much lower specs. I ended up going with a Nokia smartphone when the Casio PocketPC lost all my data for the 4th or 5th time. It still sits at the bottom of a drawer somewhere.

     

     My 2001ish-vintage iPaq would lose its mind if the battery died, too - forcing you to go through the tutorial again to boot.

    I loved the thing, though - the sheer awesomeness of playing SNES games on a portable device couldn't be beat (luckily I'm a JRPG guy so framerates in the low 20s weren't a problem).

    The irony is that the ancient iPaq could do a reasonable job of SNES emulation, but my 624mhz, Java-only-crippled blackberry can't even run an NES emu at more than a few FPS. Progress...



  • @RogerWilco said:

    - When I removed the batteries (or they ran out), it would lose all its settings and come back on at factory default, even my appointments, contacts and such would be gone.
    I had this problem with a PPC too. You had to put it on charge regularly or it lost its data. I found this particularly annoying and stopped using the device. Later on I started hacking and managed to upgrade to a newer version of the OS (unofficially). Problem solved! Even with the battery removed, it remembered all the settings. Never got the Wifi or Bluetooth to work since the update though. 

    So, it seems more like a software problem than a hardware one. 



  • Stupid phones... IMO, the greatest phone evar is the Nokia 5190. I would still be using it if they would let me.


  • Garbage Person

    @Thief^ said:

    @Weng said:

    and pull the SDK out of the expensive version of Visual Studio and make it a damn addon to VS Express.

    Wait what? Last time I developed for WinMob, you had to use a free version of Visual Studio called "eMbedded Visual C++". Now they've rolled it into the paid version of studio? Strangely enough, at the time there was no free Visual Studio "express" for writing ordinary Windows apps.

    They have a whole mobile .net framework now - the Professional version of VS comes with the SDKs and an emulator and all kinds of shit (Though irritatingly the software images it comes with are so far out of date by the time the disks go to press, you have to go download new ones anyway)

    Although, considering how easy it is to get your hands on a free/reduced price copy of VS Pro anyway, it's not such a big obstacle (But still a big political one)

  • Garbage Person

    @RogerWilco said:

    I used to have a PocketPC 2000 way back in the day before it was called WindowsMobile.  I haven't used it for years. If you are a current user and advocate, maybe you can tell me if they have now solved my biggest three gripes with it:

    - Lefthanded use. There was no way to move the scrollbar to the left, making it all but impossible to use in any application that required one.

     

    Have yet to see anything like that - but I'm still running WM6.5, and they may or may not have added it to 7.

    - When I removed the batteries (or they ran out), it would lose all its settings and come back on at factory default, even my appointments, contacts and such would be gone.
    This is actually the device manufacturers being smegheads and storing all your userdata in battery-backed-RAM. The advent of cheap, fast Flash has fixed this problem - your user data resides right alongside the OS and software and you can pull the battery at will (The OS supported this all along)

    - Syncing files, contacts, appointments. This only worked if you had the correct version of MS Office. No way to get at your Appointments or Excel-mobile files without it.

    XP still relies on ActiveSync, which I can't speak to how much shit it is or is not. There's a whole new fancy-assed sync app rolled into Vista and 7, and as far as I can tell, it doesn't give a rat's ass about anything. Outlook 2007 and 2003 both sync fine to my WM6.5 device, as does OneNote and presumably Excel (I haven't ever used Pocket Excel).

     

    Also, some handset vendor customizations and many aftermarket OS images include an app that allows you to connect the phone to the PC as a mass storage device instead of a PDA, or generic USB cellular modem - or indeed a generic USB *DIALUP* modem (Fuck off, dataplans, I can just dial in to work and get blazing fast 56k!). to avoid the need for sync apps or crazy drivers at all.

     



  • @jasmine2501 said:

    Stupid phones... IMO, the greatest phone evar is the Nokia 5190. I would still be using it if they would let me.
     

    My friend had a 5110 (same phone, different frequencies) and it was great, back in the day. Practically undestructable.

    I wanted an E70 but the phone companies around here never really sold it. I did have 5510, 6800 and 6820 previously. :) My current phone doesn't have a QWERTY keyboard. :(



  • I still used a Mitsubishi Trium up until about 2 years ago when the charger broke. I used it deliberately... to show off its nasty green and black screen and remind people how much I hate mobile phones, or any phone for that matter. Mobile phones are just an excuse for work to call me, anyone civilised knows to email or IM me.

    I might stoop to using a 3G phone someday but I'd still prefer my netbook. Anything that can be done by phone can be done by email.



  • @jasmine2501 said:

    Stupid phones... IMO, the greatest phone evar is the Nokia 5190. I would still be using it if they would let me.
    That thing was so big it could swallow your head!


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