Text with your tablet using TexTab
I’ve noticed that ever since I got my tablet, I don’t use my smartphone for as much anymore. I mean why would I want to play a game on my little phone’s screen, when I can play it in full HD on my 10-inch tablet? I’m not saying I don’t still use my phone a lot, but my tablet has taken over a good chunk of what I would use my phone for. Texting and phone calls are of course the two things that most tablets can’t do. There are texting apps that you can use that don’t use your phone number, but if you want to text through your carrier’s number, then TexTab is the answer for you.
TexTab is an app that allows you to pair your phone and tablet together using Bluetooth and then you can send and receive text messages through your tablet. You need to install the app on both your phone and tablet. Everything you need to do to pair them you can do from within the app. The app will turn on Bluetooth, make your device discoverable, and give you all the details to do the final pairing. Once they are paired you can then use your tablet to send and receive texts. Since all your phone’s contacts are synced through Google, you should be able to call them all up on your tablet from the app.
The actual app looks and feels a lot like most chat clients. You can see your messages in conversation form, and choose from all your recent contacts. The one big thing that is really annoying however is that even though all your messages come through to your tablet, and you get notifications there, the next time you pick up your phone you will have to clear out all the notifications on it as well. The app doesn’t stop the native texting app on your phone from giving you your normal notifications.
The other thing that could be improved is if this was WiFi based instead of Bluetooth. With the limited range of Bluetooth it means that you can’t set your phone on the counter downstairs and take your tablet upstairs and expect this app to work. I don’t know if it is possible to do this through WiFi, but if it was that would be 100 times better. There is both a free and paid version of the app, with the paid version costing $1.99. The free version is a trial, so it will expire after a limited number of sent messages.
[TexTab]
