You're viewing a single thread.
Wasn't the first text message sent in 1992?
Yeah, that’s when the tech first developed, but it wasn’t common use until much much later.
In the 90s, cell phones were still rare, and even as they became more popular, they didn’t have a QWERTY keyboard or a decent size screen until the blackberry was released in 99.
The first real texting trends that I saw in the US came around 98-99 as some new pagers came out with the ability to send sms and had qwerty keyboards, but they were only used by small groups of people within their social/business circles.
T9 text input was a thing in the late 90s. I used it heavily for texting.
I didn’t meant to imply T9 was not used for texting, but it was never adopted to the point of being the preferred way of communication for the majority of people because it was very slow. It really didn’t take off with any single demographic until most teens got cell phones, which wasn't until the 00s, and even then, those that did use T9 would abbreviate most words because it was so incredibly slow to type out every character. For most, unless you had to say something small or were out of minutes, you’d always prefer calling someone over texting.
Mobile QWERTY keyboards and later voice to text were what made sms overtake calling as the preferred method of comms for the majority of people.
Having grown up editing this time I disagree. My friends and I all texted on Nokias or motorola flip phones with T9 input. Qwerty phones didn't come out till much later.
I’m not saying people didn’t text with T9. People texted. But most of the people that did use T9 didn’t start using it until the 00s because most people didn’t have cell phones in the late 90s. I’m saying this as someone who texted with T9 and QWERTY in 1999.
And I’m also saying texting didn’t become the preferred method for nearly everyone until the smartphone era, because for many people that had cell phones before QWERTY keyboards despised texting.
You’re combining those two points and are wrongly concluding that I’m saying no one texted on T9.
I’d forgotten how late the qwerty keyboard came out. I didn’t get one until 2008 I don’t think - iPhone 3G. I don’t think predictive text was common/standard until 2003ish. Having to press 7 four times to get an S was such a ballache!
But you could put together a cohesive message without looking at your phone.
IIRC When I got my first mobile in 1999 I could send 10 very short messages a day max. I only had one other person I could text. It wasn’t until 2002ish that texts became a common thing. It wasn’t until 2004ish that the ridiculous limit was removed.