Verizon HTC 8x Group texting question

[alaurita]

I have been bouncing around between phones with different OS in the past few years. I have gone from BB Storm to Moto Droid to Droid X, to iPhone 4 to iPhone 4s, to Moto Razr to HTC Rezound to Galaxy Nexus and now back to the iPhone 4s. I am currently eligible for an upgrade and so I recently scooped up a GSIII on Black Friday (i am unsure if I will ultimately keep it or not). Anyway, while I was at the VZW store I was playing around with 8x and found it to be a fantastic phone. In fact, as far as actual form factors, it was probably one, if not THE best phones to hold in your hand. I was really impressed with the fluidity of the OS and the sharpness of the screen, camera, etc. Now I have read since that threaded group texting has been disabled by VZW for the 8x (despite them allowing it on RAZR series, LG Spectrum 2, DNA, and the iPhone). This is a must have feature for me as I am involved in many group chats constantly and it gets really confusing if they arent nicely threaded. On the android phones that I have had, I could always download a third party solution and make it my default texting app (GoSMS Pro, Handcent etc) or I could flash a rom that has that feature built in. I am unfamiliar with WP8, so I dont know if these are options. Can you flash a ROM that has say the group SMS capability (like AT&T or Tmo have on their 8x) or is there a 3rd party app that can replace the stock SMS app? Unless there is some type of future update in the cards from VZW/HTC on this omission which I am currently unaware of.

I would really consider giving WP8 an honest shot if I could somehow enable this feature. Anybody have an answer on this, it would be much appreciated.

Thanks

 

[thed]

There are a couple threads about this already:
http://forums.windowscentral.com/wi...what-happened-group-messaging-mms-option.html
http://forums.windowscentral.com/htc-8x/203403-no-group-text-sms-option-htc-8x-verizon-any-info.html

Short answer, Verizon made HTC and Nokia disable it for WP8 and nobody knows why. The HTC Trophy, Verizon's only WP7 phone, does have group texting. So does every other WP8 phone besides the Verizon ones (HTC 8X and Nokia 822). AFAIK, there aren't any replacement apps for group texting (ones that use group MMS at least, there are plenty of chat apps out there that just use data).

Chances are, there will be a solution on XDA at some point. But WP8 is still young, I don't believe there are any custom ROMs out there yet. You're out of luck for now unless Verizon decides to explain itself.

 

[alaurita]

Thats pretty much what I figured. Yeah I read through those forums but I thought maybe somebody had some additional information. Its a shame, the 8X looks like a fantastic phone. I was even willing to take a hit on a few apps that WP does not have in the Store yet because I liked the way the phone felt that much. Hopefully a work around is in the near future or VZW decides to stop being ridiculous. I could have swore I saw the option on the demo phone in the store but I guess my eyes deceived me. One more quick question if you know, does the 8x/WP8 have emoji support (iPhone style), I thought i saw them on the demo phone as well, but then again I thought I saw group texting and that didnt work out so well for me.

Thanks

 

[philxor]

From what others found out VZW plans on disabling this for all phones next year whether they support it now or not. They want to migrate people away from MMS onto something IP based. The problem is everyone has their own stuff for group chat.