There are a lot of benefits to using Android, and one of them is the sheer amount of customization that you have over your UI, default applications, etc. The Google Play Store is filled with third-party SMS apps to replace the one that comes preinstalled on your phone by default, and while some of them aren't that great, there are a lot of excellent ones to choose from.
We've previously talked about our top picks for the best of these apps, but some of our forum users recently approached this conversation a bit differently by talking about the main reasons they choose to ditch stock texting apps in the first place.
Here are some of the top answers.
for the reason that we like Android: variety.
mysamsungs7e
Choice is a good thing. Don't like stock, choose something else. You like stock, stick with it. If an app is good and you find it useful, don't whine about kicking a couple bucks to a developer. They put work in and if they don't get paid for that work, they won't develop better apps.
cwbcpa
Different colors.. fonts.. etc. Also some functionality. Such as I have it set to use MMS if it's over 160 characters.. therefore long SMS messages don't get split up by carriers since it'll send as a file with MMS. I also like the quick reply function and the customization to how notifications work with Textra over stock. To me that's worth the little I dished out for the app. I paid a few...
Almeuit
Total customisation from colours to sounds. Get a long sms.....no problem with textra - but on sammy default I must tap the first part of sms to take me to the next page which shows the full sms???? Weird! Only thing with textra is that I can't read my sms on my gear S3 whereas sammy can. As for the cost of buying apps you're only paying for someone's time & effort so a couple of $ or even a few...
103Softail
Now, we'd like to hear from you – Do you use stock SMS apps? Why or why not?
