Parents of teenagers that have phones but lack unlimited texting plans on them will have horror stories of massive bills, as will those adult users who prefer this method of communication to telephone calls.  The majority of people feel that service providers charge too much for this as well, since there is not any real extra cost associated with it, but there is in fact an alternative, wherein users can pay a once off fee and then have access to unlimited messaging.  TextNow is the answer to this problem, and is an application that not only boasts a fantastic user interface, but also gives users unlimited Picture Messaging and SMS’.

People are very influenced by a good user interface, and will often pay more for an application that doesn’t necessarily do anything any better than another app, but simply looks better.  With TextNow, the price is what gets your attention at first.  You simply purchase the application for $0.99, and you will then receive 3 months worth of service, and excellent method by which users are able to test the application before buying it.  Should you decide you like the app you can purchase a full years service for $3.99, or go the whole way and buy unlimited access forever for $7.99.  After this has been done you will sign up for a username at the at textnow.me, and have access to all your contacts from inside the application; it basically works in the same way as the built in iOS Messages application.  It boasts a fantastic UI that comes with a wallpaper screen you can customize, as well as changeable sounds and various ringtones you can specify for specific contacts or groups of contacts. Now you are able to send and receive all the messages you want, without the recipient having to own a similar account, and although you are not assigned a phone number, the messages will be displayed as being sent from the name that you have configured into the application, allowing people to identify who is sending the messages.  Because the application runs on both the iPod Touch and the iPad, you are able to send and receive messages from both these devices also.

It also boasts a fantastic Google Voice Integration feature, and after you have set your account up you are able to just forward your SMS messages from your Google Voice account to your textnow.me email address and they will be displayed inside the application in the same way your other messages do, and, should you decide to respond, they are routed through  the Google Voice account and will appear as if they are coming from that number originally.  This application is basically a great user interface that has been added to the Google Voice SMS feature.