Send a Text Message

The full QWERTY keyboard on the Treo devices opens up all kinds of interesting possibilities for text messaging. Granted, hardcore text message users have become quite adept at cranking out messages on tiny phone keypads with only a few keys. With the Treo, however, you can start using your smartphone as more of a true text communicator. To send an SMS (Short Message Service) text message on your Treo, follow these steps:

1.	If the mobile radio isn't turned on, hold down the Power/End button until you hear a tone and a screen appears that indicates you're being connected to the wireless network.
2.	After you are connected to the network, press the Messaging button (to the lower right of the five-way navigator) to launch the Messaging application.
3.	Tap the New button to begin creating a new message. The Compose screen opens, as shown in Figure 2.15. Figure 2.15. Use the Compose screen in the Messaging application to enter a text message.
4.	Press the number keys on the keyboard to enter the phone number of the text message's recipient next to the To: label. If you want to send a text message to an email address instead, you can enter the address in the To: field.
5.	Press the Down button on the five-way navigator to move to the message body and begin entering the message text (see Figure 2.16). Figure 2.16. Entering text for a text message simply involves typing text in the body of the message in the Compose screen.
6.	When you're ready to send the message, tap the Send button near the bottom of the screen. After a few seconds, the message is sent to the recipient.

You probably noticed some additional buttons along the bottom of the Compose screen that I neglected to mention in the previous steps on how to send a text message. You can use these buttons to do some useful things, such as insert QuickText, which consists of commonly used phrases that you can select and insert to save time. You can also select emoticons (smilies) to insert in a message. To add pizzazz to your text messages, you can turn them into multimedia messages by adding a voice memo, digital picture, or video clip. All these topics are tackled in detail in Chapter 9, "Communicating with Text and Multimedia Messages."

Note

SMS text messages are limited to only 160 characters, so the idea is to keep them short and sweet. However, if you find yourself rambling past the 160-character limit, don't fret because the Treo's Messaging application automatically breaks longer messages into 160-character chunks that are sent as separate messages.