Can send a text message to "home" number

[danmcg]

So I have about 800 contacts in my phone. Lot's of people I have listed as a home number (personal cell) and work number (work cell). When I try to send them a text message they do not show up as a viable number because it is not listed as mobile. Am I missing something here or can you only send text messages to the number that is listed as mobile? I am coming from iOS so it's all a learning experience. This was not the case on my iPhone. I could store any number as whatever type I wanted, and it would let me compose a text to it. If it didn't work at&t bounced it and said it was invalid.

 

[tk-093]

I actually like it that way, it always bugged me that seeing more then just mobile bugged me and sometimes i would pick the wrong one not thinking...

Anyway, right now all I know you can do is in to field of a text message you can hit that little plus icon in the top right and it will take you to your phone book and from there you can pick a person and it will show you all their numbers to pick from.. Extra steps I know... but so far that's the only thing I can figure out for you.

 

[Livingston12]

This was bugging me as well and I figured it out today.

When you have the text message up with the contact name already in there hit the ellipses on the bottom right corner, hit switch, then more phone numbers.

 

[danmcg]

This was bugging me as well and I figured it out today.

When you have the text message up with the contact name already in there hit the ellipses on the bottom right corner, hit switch, then more phone numbers.

This doesn't seem to do anything for me. I think you have to have a mobile number already in there for that to work maybe? The first option by tk-093 seems to be the only way. It's a few extra presses. Ah well. The other sucky part is that I can't pin that contact to the home screen and use it to text. I might have to modify my contact list for those people to be mobile 1 and mobile 2. Not ideal. No way I'm going to remember this. Isn't that why we have "smart" phones!?

 

[fifthGear]

While it may make sense to you, it does seem to me that by far the vast majority of people will place a contact's mobile number under the lable 'Mobile'. Most people use the term 'Home' to mean a land line (Yes, some people still have those). So, while I do understand your frustration, for most of us the fact that WP defaults to texting to a number marked as 'Mobile' (since to my knowledge only mobile phones can send/receive text messages) does make sense.

Moreover a user of TellMe (which I personally use extensively) can say 'Text John' and WP immediately knows that, of all the phone numbers I have included in John's contact information, my intention is to use the one which I have designated as 'Mobile'. Of course the argument could be made that TellMe could allow texting to target numbers just as it does for calling (e.g. being able to say 'Text John Mobile' similarly to how one can currently say, 'Call John Mobile'). But omitting 'Mobile' from the command to TellMe should still default to texting to the number designated as 'Mobile'.

I personally think that it's a reasonable implementation, but again I have designated all my contact's mobile phone numbers as 'Mobile', so it all works as expected for me. I wouldn't want to have to edit 800 contacts, but then again I only actually regularly text with about 15 or so of my contacts.

 

[tk-093]

You can actually text a land line... well, certian ones. We have a land line through our cable internet provider and it rang one day and I answered it and it was a computer voice reading a text message to me.. One of my wife's friends tried to text her and accidently sent it to our land line. It would be a good way to annoy your friends.

 

[fifthGear]

You can actually text a land line... well, certian ones. We have a land line through our cable internet provider and it rang one day and I answered it and it was a computer voice reading a text message to me.. One of my wife's friends tried to text her and accidently sent it to our land line. It would be a good way to annoy your friends.

THAT's really cool! I never knew that. Will have to try it some time, if I can find someone who still has a land line. Do you know if this is dependant upon with whom you have service or do all land-line providers do this?

 

[tk-093]

THAT's really cool! I never knew that. Will have to try it some time, if I can find someone who still has a land line. Do you know if this is dependant upon with whom you have service or do all land-line providers do this?

No idea.. we have Mediacom so if a smaller cable company has it, I would bet the bigger ones like Time Warner, etc do...

 

[Kebero]

You can set two mobile numbers (mobile and mobile 2) for a contact.

 

[danmcg]

While it may make sense to you, it does seem to me that by far the vast majority of people will place a contact's mobile number under the lable 'Mobile'. Most people use the term 'Home' to mean a land line (Yes, some people still have those). So, while I do understand your frustration, for most of us the fact that WP defaults to texting to a number marked as 'Mobile' (since to my knowledge only mobile phones can send/receive text messages) does make sense.

I have no problem with it defaulting to mobile. That makes perfect sense. I don't think it should be so difficult to text another number though. That part is my opinion and we know what they are like...

Moreover a user of TellMe (which I personally use extensively) can say 'Text John' and WP immediately knows that, of all the phone numbers I have included in John's contact information, my intention is to use the one which I have designated as 'Mobile'. Of course the argument could be made that TellMe could allow texting to target numbers just as it does for calling (e.g. being able to say 'Text John Mobile' similarly to how one can currently say, 'Call John Mobile'). But omitting 'Mobile' from the command to TellMe should still default to texting to the number designated as 'Mobile'.

Agreed. Just as composing a text should default to mobile unless otherwise specified.

I personally think that it's a reasonable implementation, but again I have designated all my contact's mobile phone numbers as 'Mobile', so it all works as expected for me. I wouldn't want to have to edit 800 contacts, but then again I only actually regularly text with about 15 or so of my contacts.

There aren't many people that I have listed as such. But some people have 2 mobiles (or more which is only about 3 of my contacts) so it will be a little bit of editing. I have also noticed that lots of my contacts have the number listed as "other". I think Google did this to them when it synced or something weird.

You can set two mobile numbers (mobile and mobile 2) for a contact.

I might have to modify my contact list for those people to be mobile 1 and mobile 2. Not ideal. No way I'm going to remember this. Isn't that why we have "smart" phones!?

Yes I know. I stated that already. I just didn't want to have to edit this. Now I need to remember that mobile is personal and mobile2 is work. Wait, or was that mobile was work and mobile 2 was personal. Crap...

 

[danmcg]

Well an unfortunate side effect of changing this on the phone arrises with my contacts. I use a Gmail account and when I change the contact to mobile and mobile 2 on my phone, it adds 2 entries in my Google contacts. One listed as "other" and one listed as "car". So it seems like I either deal with the extra steps and not being able to pin someone to the start screen and text them form there, deal with having duplicate numbers in my gmail address book, or deal with trying to use outlook.com to sync my contacts (I assume the contact fields there match the phone).

Boo.

 

[bngr1]

I have been swapping my contacts from phone to phone for 15 years. Classification of numbers only came about a few years ago and all my numbers were defaulted to 'work'; hence 80-90% of my 1400 phone contacts are considered work, and I have to go the long way round to send a text almost every time. It is a total pain. I have far too many contacts to go into them one my one to change their setting. Windows phone seem to be the only company that limits text functions to contacts set as 'mobile'.

Given this seems to be an unfixable design flaw, does anyone know a way I could change all of my contacts to 'mobile' in one go?

 

[ratsttam]

THAT's really cool! I never knew that. Will have to try it some time, if I can find someone who still has a land line. Do you know if this is dependant upon with whom you have service or do all land-line providers do this?

The SENDING cell provider has to support it. I have Sprint and am able to "text" any number. You even get a reply back indicating that it was listened to by a real person, and not caught by an answering machine. The receiving "land" line has no way to differentiate between these these text to landline services from a regular phone call.