You Can Now Easily Send/Receive SMS Messages From The KDE Desktop

[Happy Heyoka]

It would be much more useful if I could select a contact from a list, not just type the number.

The KDE address book supports Google contacts (which for me, is all the stuff that's on my phone)
Although I love KDE Connect, I haven't tried the SMS stuff out yet... YMMV

[Zoll]

SMS is dead here (Kuwait). It's mostly SPAM with the occasional Thank you for settling your phone bill. No one uses it for communication. Everyone in the region uses Whatsup, SMS been dead for over 5 years. It's nice for them to support it nonetheless.

[andyholmes]

It would be much more useful if I could select a contact from a list, not just type the number.

There has been an open task on the KDE Connect phabricator for fetching contacts from the phone and some interest in taking it on, but I'm not sure there was any consensus about how to do that, whether it was a good idea, or whether it should be implemented on the desktop side (via libfolks, Google GData, or desktop address book).

The KDE Connect indicator (Gtk) has had this feature for...well a long time and fetches contacts direct from google. Some other non-KDE clients have used Folks to pull in. I was surprised to hear this wasn't already an option for the KDE Connect plasmoid, I thought google had tossed me an ancient news report by accident.

[Julius]

KDE connect is great and works fine with non-KDE DEs as well... which is exactly why I don't think implementing this as a KDE Plasmoid is a good idea

P.S.: Luckily SMS is still working fine and you don't have to rely on shitty Facebook WhatApp for texting in most of the world.

[srakitnican]

SMS costs money where I live even with monthly plans is common to pay per SMS, e-mail or even chat is free as long as there is a Internet connection available. Internet connection is available with monthly plan for limited amount of traffic.

[wdb974]

Wow, didn't expect so much negative input on regular SMS. Besides, I'm surprised anyone would have to pay for SMS. Here, I pay €15 a month for unlimited calls, SMS/MMS and 30 GB of mobile data (going over this amount meaning you'll have 2G speeds for mobile Internet).

But anyway... I live in a mountainous place, so getting an Internet connection from your phone can be an issue sometimes, while the signal will always (or almost) be strong enough for regular SMS.

This is definitely a welcome addition.

[rtfazeberdee]

I think its great. It notifies me of all the SMS and emails i receive and allows me to reply to any SMS while i'm working at the desktop. It means i don't have to have my phone with me all the time.

[polarathene]

Wow, didn't expect so much negative input on regular SMS. Besides, I'm surprised anyone would have to pay for SMS. Here, I pay €15 a month for unlimited calls, SMS/MMS and 30 GB of mobile data (going over this amount meaning you'll have 2G speeds for mobile Internet).

But anyway... I live in a mountainous place, so getting an Internet connection from your phone can be an issue sometimes, while the signal will always (or almost) be strong enough for regular SMS.

This is definitely a welcome addition.

In my country, before there was proper competition, you would pay $10-$20 for 2,000 SMS message for 30 days, any unused expires. Without the "value pack" you pay 20 cents per SMS message.

Now we have similar price for unlimited SMS, some minutes and data(500MB-1GB) I think, same rule of 30 day expiry. Although at least with my provider, if I pay for the monthly plan again within a few days of expiry I get to roll over my unused minutes and data and it will allow this to roll over for up to 12 months instead of 30 day lifetime. The providers all support the unlimited SMS now, although initially they only allowed unlimited SMS to other phones using the same provider, so send to competitor would charge you the 20 cent fee.

[rockcat]

It's really cool that we have this feature, although in my country sms is mostly used for spam. I pay 8,5 US $ for unlimited phone calls, unlimited sms / mms, 15G of mobile LTE transfer stacking each month if not used and mostly I'm using whatsapp. Some people still using sms for communication here. The really cool idea would be to use kde connect to transfer phone calls via wifi to computer and using a external microphone with it : ) Of course with possiblity to read phone contacts. That's all!

[ptyerman]

Supporting SMS is a good thing, it's still widely used here in the UK and specially by older farts like me! I use SMS more than calls and don't use Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter or anything Google. I don't use KDE since the 3.5 days though so if it's made KDE only that would be a downer!