In this age of email on the move, its easy to forget that for most people, texting is still a major part of the daily routine. However, it would be good to know who has actually sent you a message before you open it. Step up SMS Preview, which allows exactly that. Or does it? Find out in our SMS Preview review...
Of all the tiny niggles that annoy the average Nokia owner, one of the niggliest is surely the way you can never tell who sent you a text until you open it or go and peek in your inbox.
How can you tell if it is an important missive from your nearest and dearest that is demanding your time, or just another spam text from your mobile operator to let you know about the gig tickets you can exclusively give them more money for (yes, O2, we are looking at you here)?
One solution to this problem has arrived in the form of SMS Preview. This free download is a spin off from Mobile Nordic’s directory lookup app 118 Mobile.
SMS Preview installs and runs as a service and basically reads your SMS messages as they arrive. The sender and first couple of lines of the message are then displayed in a pop-up window to give you the gist of what the message is about. It is then up to you if you want to go to the trouble of opening the message, reading it properly and maybe replying.
Sounds good? Well.. yes and no. While it is useful to be able to see at a glance who sent an incoming text, SMS Preview gives a little too much information. Those first couple of lines that the app pops up are readable by anyone who is looking at your phone when a text comes in. Fine if it is just an innocuous 'How are you?', but what if it were something a little more.. intimate?
What would be useful is the option to display only the sender's name or number, or to bar certain contacts from being displayed at all. As it is you can configure the length of time the pop-up is popped-up for and that's your lot. Being able to tweak this time is vital, though, as it is quite difficult to do anything else with your phone while the pop-up is on display.
Its a shame, as this is a potentially useful app that plugs a genuine hole in the way S60 phones handle incoming messages. As it is, we would have to think carefully about the privacy aspect before giving this app a permanent home.
Details
Size: 0.344MB
Price: Free
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