As you may know, I’m in Rio right now. And I decided that I won’t use my iPhone on this trip at all because of the high price of international data plans and voice calls when abroad. So essentially, my iPhone is now an iPod Touch.
When I landed in Rio, I made sure I to turn on “Airplane Mode” so I wouldn’t have any surprises in terms of data charges. When I traveled to Hong Kong and London recently, I got hit with lots of charges for data and voice/text so I wanted to save some money this time. I’m already a heavy user of Skype, especially for international calls, so this isn’t a huge adjustment for my iPhone or laptop.
However Skype doesn’t have an instant messaging feature. It can send texts to cell phones, but it charges about 11 cents for each text. And that can really add up.
The hotel I’m staying at has Wi-Fi for a reasonable price, so I’m using that for Internet browsing and phone calls. However, I still wanted a way to text my friends and family back in the states. All the methods I researched didn’t have a great way to keep in touch.Other services allow you to chat with friends (like Facebook or even Truphone) but both sides need to have the app installed and be connected.
I wanted a chat-like instant message system that could be “always on”. I also wanted it to connect to a number of different instant message systems, including AIM, Google and text messaging. And I found the solution in AIM for iPhone.
Just click on an AIM contact to send free, unlimited texts directly to someone’s cell phone.
With AIM, I can use it for regular instant messages with other AIM users. However it also allows for texts to your iPhone contacts for free. After importing your contacts, you just click on a contact to send free, unlimited texts directly to someone’s cell phone.
Yes, that’s free. And you can stay logged in as long as you like. When someone replies to you, you receive it as an AIM message, not a text. Thus, you avoid text charges and can stay connected in real time to anyone.
One important note: some hotels charge you for each device that is using Wi-Fi. So if you have a laptop and an iPhone, you’ll be charged twice the daily Wi-Fi rate. I discovered this when I was in Hong Kong and logged in from both devices and was stuck with a higher than expected Internet bill.
However, some hotels allow you to log-in by your room number which means you’re only charged once no matter how many devices you have. (Clearly, I prefer this method since it seems most fair for travelers.)
So, the beauty of using AIM for iPhone means I can chat with my Google Mail contacts, AIM friends, and anyone else via text messages. All for free. (I’m pretty sure you can’t send picture mail though, but that’s ok.)
My iPhone tends to log me out of the Wi-Fi connection at the hotel (since it requires a log in and authentication) but it doesn’t take much to log back in when I turn my phone back on. At least I can be connected with the world, as long as I have Wi-Fi.
When I want to make a voice call, I use Skype (on my iPhone or laptop) which has worked great.
Of course you can’t always have Wi-Fi available everywhere you go. If I leave the confines of my hotel, I have to hunt out Wi-Fi signals. But it’s a great alternative to high phone bills and expensive international data plans.