Can a web application use a personal phone to send a text message

Question

I have a client who sends about 5000 SMS messages each month. They are currently doing this from an iPhone, by actually typing the message in to the phone. (I think the messages are quite repetitive, and are often addressed to groups).

The reason that they are not using an online message gateway is purely the cost. We can use a gateway here in Australia (such as Amazon SMS) for about 7.5 cents for transactional (and 2.5 cents for promotional, though I don't know if this is reliable enough).

When the client uses their own iPhone, the SMS is included in their plan, and costs them nothing extra.

I am building a web-based application for the client and the question is 'Can I send SMS via a handset connected to the client's desktop PC'. I think the answer is no, but would like to be surprised. The application is responsive, so what about if they triggered the messages from a browser on the phone? Still no?

Answer 1

If you could use an Android phone instead an iPhone, you could create a small gateway app on the Android that can send text messages without the need for the user's intervention.

It could work like this:

• The Android app would have a simple REST interface, a good start could be https://github.com/NanoHttpd/nanohttpd.
• An endpoint in the Android app could send messages, see Sending SMS programmatically without opening message app
• The software on the computer would use the rest endpoint on the Android phone to send the message.

This wouldn't work on the iPhone because it doesn't allow an app to send a text message without the user's intervention.