{"id":2307,"date":"2011-07-15T11:48:39","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T18:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pdxtc.com\/wpblog\/?p=2307"},"modified":"2014-12-04T13:16:20","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T20:16:20","slug":"google-contacts-messaging-groupsandroid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pdxtc.com\/wpblog\/cell-phones-pdas\/google-contacts-messaging-groupsandroid\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Contacts – Messaging Groups in Android"},"content":{"rendered":"

With all the buzz lately about Google Plus<\/a> over the past few weeks, (feel free to test my Plus button on the right) you don’t hear much anymore about Google Contacts<\/a>, but it’s pretty useful, and I sure hope they don’t kill it off.<\/p>\n

Don’t get me wrong, Google Plus is going to be great but for text messaging contacts it will likely never do the job I want, because my contacts would all have to agree to use it, and I think that’s unlikely, anymore than they might ALL agree to use Facebook.<\/p>\n

I used to manage all of my contacts in Microsoft Outlook putting in name, email, phone numbers, etc. and I can enter anyone I want. \u00a0While I can still do that with Google Plus, I can’t text message their phones, which is what I need.<\/p>\n

As the coach, over the course of the season, between practices, games, rainouts, reschedulings, and last minute field \/ location changes, every text I send to them goes out to 19 different cell phones, so I probably send over a thousand messages.<\/p>\n

With my Blackberry, I was able to create a group, and send text messages to that group all season long.<\/p>\n

When I first got my Android phone, I came home and used Google Apps Sync for Microsoft\u00ae Outlook<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n

Then, (also from my computer), I went into Google Contacts, and I created a group for the baseball team parents – Rockwood 2011.<\/p>\n

\"MessagingWithin minutes I could see that group on my phone, and I assumed I would be able to text the whole group, but I was wrong.<\/p>\n

Aside from going into the group, then actually checking each member one by one, there was no way to simply choose to send a text message to everyone in the group!<\/p>\n

I was actually forced to go into the group, and select members. I wasn’t even given an option to “select all”. How ridiculous!<\/p>\n

I won’t bore you with my many attempted apps and failed solutions over two days, although there were plenty, so I’ll cut right to the chase…<\/p>\n

The Solution?<\/h3>\n
\"Handcent

Handcent for Android<\/p><\/div>\n

HandCent SMS for Android<\/a> immediately solved my problem by doing exactly what someone was apparently too lazy to do in the integrated messaging in my Verizon Samsung Charge phone.<\/p>\n

You can get it Handcent at the Android Market<\/a>, and \u00a0I made a donation to them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now that baseball season is over, I made a quick video showing \u00a0how I used Google contacts just now to create my fall baseball team group, and yes, it WAS working on my phone already by the time I finished the video…<\/p>\n

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