Emoticons - Convert SMS to MMS at a price!

Even if you type a smiley with a Colon -Dash - Parentheses it becomes an Emoticon image :frowning:
I pay 40p for every text when this happens. Is there any way to stop this function?

I’m interpreting a bit: You are saying, that you pay 40 cents per MMS and don’t want SMS to convert to MMS? In the next update, the threshold will be at 9 SMS before a message converts to MMS. (Fairphone OS 1.6: 3 SMS)

The emoticons depend on the characters used. E.g. “:-)” does not use more space than this: :slight_smile: . This is due to the character code table used in SMS. Some characters use more space than others (e.g. “√” (the square root) uses a lot of space because of the code lying beneath it).

Your options:

  1. Use only smilies with simple characters.
  2. Be careful and start a new SMS before the threshold is hit (you can see the character count next to the send button).
  3. Install the update to 1.8 manually (only for experienced users!).

PS: I filed this into the Help category to make it easier to find.

Or skip the (unnecessary) dash! Just type colon + parenthesis, like this: ":)"
Problem sorted :smile:

Doesn’t make graphical emoticons though (at least not on the FP). :wink:

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I know, that was my point :slight_smile: But it conveys the same message, doesn’t it? : )

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I have found an issue with a Fairphone which seems to automatically convert SMS to MMS if the SMS has more than about 180-190 characters in it. Should this be happening, surely even on the older software more characters are allowed before converting to MMS?

Now, I am reporting this on behalf of somebody and they did mention that it didn’t tell them it had converted to MMS until it failed to send and they then tried forwarding the message as that was the only way they could find of resending the message (he is unable to paste what he has copied into SMS) and that’s when it says it can’t send because it’s MMS and he doesn’t have MMS set up. Is it possible that it wasn’t converted to MMS but any forwarded SMS are converted to MMS?

Do you have any idea how to resolve this? Any help is much appreciated! Thanks in advance :slight_smile:

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Well, let me clear up one thing in my query. No matter how carefully I type a Smiley Face, it becomes an Emoticon image of a Smiley, and Virgin Mobile calls this an IMAGE (which becomes, to their mind an MMS) – and charge me accordingly. That means I get charged sending or receiving. The number of characters in my text at that point are irrelevant.

I finally found out where to look for the number of characters left on a text so I can send before it runs over the limit of 180 characters.

Even if you only type a : and a ) ? Or colon_space_parenthesis, like this : ) ? If so, it is an odd behaviour, since (as @Stefan also wrote) this should not result in an emoticon.
Do you use the default Message app?

So, your SMS get’s converted to MMS quite soon.
One thing I noticed is to stay away from accented characters; watch the character count jump when you insert one.
I don’t know why, but they take up a ridiculous amount of space if you accidentally introduce them.
Some of them do not take a penalty, but I don’t know which ones…
Maybe this is the problem you run into?

Just to add: if so, try a different keyboard. I am currently using the Swype keyboard, and replaced my standard messaging app with textsecure (which encrypts it’s SMS database locally, etc.). While I can use android-emoticons, they are not automatically replaced when I use a ‘traditional’ text smiley.

Here is my setup:

  1. I am using the standard SMS app, which comes preinstalled.
  • I have Fairphone OS 1.8 installed.
  • I can write 9 continuous SMS á approx. 150 characters = 1350 characters before the SMSs get converted to a MMS.

PS: On OS versions before 1.8 the threshold was 3 SMS I think (about 450 characters). 180/190 characters definitely are not a threshold in the standard SMS app.
Pps: You could still try SMSdroid to see if it improves your experience. (Also to @MaryBD)

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I just successfully installed this Xposed Module, which disables MMS conversion on the FP (despite the info about Samsung phones).

Read here, if you don’t know, what the Xposed Framework is.

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