International texting apps (SMS) are be a must have, whether your favourite / carry-everywhere / sleep-with-it-under-your-pillow / can’t-live-without-it smartphone is an iPhone, Android or Windows. Without international texting apps, text charges can easily shoot through the roof, incurring enormous charges and hampering your ability to stay in touch with friends, family and loved-ones in other countries.

International Texting Apps from the iPhone App Store

The iPhone app store provides several international texting apps.

HeyWire is a free app and works well for some but has been critiqued among its community. Sometimes texting can be slow and cumbersome which hinders the ability to have sharp, witty conversations with friends.  Nonetheless it remains a popular app for some.

International Texting Apps for other Devices

- WhatsApp is an international text messaging app for smartphones including the iPhone, Android and BlackBerry that works with Wi-Fi and allows text, images and video to be sent.  It’s an efficient and very popular app but relies on the other person having the same app installed and cannot be used to contact people offline (without Wi-Fi or 3G).

- Viber allows users to call or text any Viber user, anywhere in the world, free of charge. Viber integrates seamlessly with existing address books, has great sound quality and is easy to use - the catch, again, is that this app crunches through your data plan and is app-to-app based so needs contacts to be viber-installed and online.

- Google Voice or Skype have international texting apps for iPhones and Android and use a data connection to send and receive texts internationally.  Competitive rates do exist.

 

International texting apps can help you keep from going over the limit of your data plan, and save you tons of dough on pay per text plans.