Send and receive standard SMS messages with your iPad to any kind of mobile phone, from anywhere - WiFi or 3G. This app requires an account with a 2-way SMS gateway, see below.
The recipient does not need a smartphone or any kind of software, and there is no need to know the name of their carrier.
You receive SMS responses via email - immediately, if you subscribe to a push-email service such as MobileMe, Gmail or Yahoo.
How it works.
Enter the recipients phone number or select it from your Contact List. Type your message - taking advantage of the large keyboard in landcsape mode if you wish - and press Send. It cant get easier than that!
The receiver gets a normal SMS message, with a telephone number to reply. When she replies, the message is sent to the email account you specify on signup. You can optionally choose to receive a reply direct to your phone.
If you normally use a webmail service with Safari, you might find it more convenient to set up a separate email account just for SMS messages, and then configure Apple Mail to access it via POP or IMAP.
Apple Mail can be configured to check for new mail a maximum of once every 15 minutes. Because a reply can arrive any time, the average wait for an SMS response is therefore 7.5 minutes.
If thats not fast enough for you, subscribe to a push email service and you will get an alert immediately the SMS arrives.
For even greater convenience, if you need to respond you can do so directly from your email application, no need to restart Real SMS.
At this time, Real SMS supports only accounts with smsglobal.com and bulksms.com
Accounts with these providers have no setup or monthly fees, you pay only for credits which do not expire if unused. Both providers also offer free credits on signup.