[GreenKeys] baudotrss ability to use Google Voice to receive SMS messages ends May 15, 2014.

Mon Dec 9 09:09:10 EST 2013

Hi Gil,

Well, not so great...

I did some investigation last night. iOS apps run in a sandbox intended to prevent them from accessing other apps. Apple pushes pretty hard to enforce this. Unfortunately the public API in iOS does not allow access to SMS messages because that breaks the sandbox design. There is probably a private API somewhere that gives access to SMS, but if it were found and used then the app could be distributed in the app store (Apple checks for these kinds of things). Plus the user would be required to "jailbreak" their phone. That is a real hack for the phone and every iOS update requires you to figure out how to jailbreak it again. I doubt this is something people would really want to do (of course some hams might enjoy the challenge...). 

So the iOS SMS message approach is probably out. We could explore the email or RSS route.

Android typically does not have these types of restrictions, so the SMS approach might be possible there - I don't really know. I have built a number of iOS apps but have not done any android work yet. I am interested to learn android, but I have too many other projects (ITTY included!) on my plate ahead of doing that, so we best find someone else for any android work.

Looking forward to hear from others...

Paul
W2TTY

On Dec 9, 2013, at 6:59 AM, Paul Heller <paulsheller at comcast.net> wrote:

> Hi Gil,
> 
> Well, not so great...
> 
> I did some investigation last night. iOS apps run in a sandbox intended to prevent them from accessing other apps. Apple pushes pretty hard to enforce this. Unfortunately the public API in iOS does not allow access to SMS messages because that breaks the sandbox design. There is probably a private API somewhere that gives access to SMS, but if it were found and used then the app could be distributed in the app store (Apple checks for these kinds of things). Plus the user would be required to "jailbreak" their phone. That is a real hack for the phone and every iOS update requires you to figure out how to jailbreak it again. I doubt this is something people would really want to do (of course some hams might enjoy the challenge...). 
> 
> So the iOS SMS message approach is probably out. We could explore the email or RSS route.
> 
> Android typically does not have these types of restrictions, so the SMS approach might be possible there - I don't really know. I have built a number of iOS apps but have not done any android work yet. I am interested to learn android, but I have too many other projects (ITTY included!) on my plate ahead of doing that, so we best find someone else for any android work.
> 
> Looking forward to hear from others...
> 
> Paul
> W2TTY
> 
> 
> On Dec 8, 2013, at 6:57 PM, gil at baudot.net wrote:
> 
>> Hey Paul:
>> 
>> That would be great!  
>> 
>> I think the first part of the puzzle would be to intercept an sms text that is coming from one or more known phone numbers (that could be configured in settings), and an option to allow all or no numbers through.  Another possibility would be to poll an email account for received messages as well, but I don't know how much work that would be.
>> 
>> The second part of the project would be to identify an external wifi gizmo (or possibly bluetooth, but wifi would have better range and probably be cheaper hardware), to which to send the message.  Either a simple discovery to find find the ip-addr/port number, or a simple programmable static-ip, could be used.  Then a tcp/ip socket could be opened, the message sent, and the socket closed.  A udp datagram could be used as well, but would not have the error checking and delivery guarantee.
>> 
>> There could be multiple wifi gizmos available, which could identify themselves during discovery.  Actually, you would only need wifi to the house router, and hard-wired ethernet units on the local net could all be found.
>> 
>> To keep it as simple as possible, you could broadcast the messages to all found ethenet devices, and let them sort it out -- a simple message could be printed by all, or an optional bit of addressing could be added to the first-line of the message.
>> 
>> Just some first ramblings -- I'm sure John has some ideas.
>> 
>> thx,  gil
>> 
>> gil smith, AF7EZ
>> greenkeys moderator
>> gil at baudot.net
>> 
>> 
>> -------- Original Message --------
>> Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] baudotrss ability to use Google Voice to
>> receive SMS messages ends May 15, 2014.
>> From: Paul Heller <paulsheller at comcast.net>
>> Date: Sun, December 08, 2013 1:11 pm
>> To: gil at baudot.net
>> Cc: nagle at animats.com, greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
>> 
>> I could try it for iOS...
>> 
>> Paul
>> W2TTY
>> 
>> On Dec 8, 2013, at 9:39 AM, gil at baudot.net wrote:
>> 
>>> Hey John:
>>> 
>>> How would the phone connect to the outside?  Wifi?  I might be interested in making just such a bit of hardware (wifi to loop) if some app programmer wants to write an app.  It would only need to provide ASCII, as I could convert to baudot easily for a loop and also provide ASCII serial out, to make the box more useful.  I could see how there could be lots of applications for both baudot and ASCII out.
>>> 
>>> So yeah, great idea.  Any programmers for android and/or iOS who could intercept SMS from a (programmable) phone number or two, discover the tcpip address/port of a gizmo (or three), and send messages?  I'd love to do a bit of hardware for that.
>>> 
>>> Gil
>>> 
>>> 
>>> gil smith, AF7EZ
>>> greenkeys moderator
>>> gil at baudot.net
>>> 
>>> 
>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>> Subject: [GreenKeys] baudotrss ability to use Google Voice to receive
>>> SMS messages ends May 15, 2014.
>>> From: John Nagle <nagle at animats.com>
>>> Date: Sat, December 07, 2013 8:50 pm
>>> To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
>>> 
>>> Due to a redesign and change in policy regarding Google Voice, the
>>> capability in my "baudotrss" package to receive SMS messages via
>>> Google Voice will stop working on May 15, 2014.
>>> 
>>> We still have support for SMS via Twilio, but that requires a
>>> paid Twilio account, and a separate web site to receive SMS
>>> messages.
>>> 
>>> The right solution for this would be to implement SMS to
>>> Teletype as a smartphone app. Anybody interested in doing that?
>>> 
>>> John Nagle
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> 

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