I feel bad now for getting people all pumped up for naught. I published a post Thursday night on Google’s new SMS feature in Gmail chat, which allows users to send SMS messages from their desktop or laptop computers to contacts’ cell phones.
Now, the company has shelved it for the time being to work out some enabling quirks. :(
Google posted this blog on Halloween explaining the issue.
Apparently, some time after Gmail Product Manager Keith Coleman switched on the feature for me Thursday night, he and his team hit a snag in the broader rollout. Google Product Manager Leo Dirac noted:
““It was pretty cool for a few minutes last night when we were sitting around texting each other. Then we found a glitch. When you’d try to turn it on, it wouldn’t fully enable. We thought about keeping it out there — bugs and all — but the experience wasn’t that great. So, in the spirit of Labs, we’ve pulled SMS chat back to fix it, and we’ll get it back out to you as soon as it’s ready — probably within 2 weeks, so stay tuned.”“
Garrett Rogers at ZDNet notes the glitch here, while Josh Lowensohn weighs in on WebWare.
This is a shame because I love this feature. I’ve already stopped texting from my own cell phone to save some data fees. One thing I’ve noticed: the character cap of about 100.
Also, you can only send two messages before it cuts you off until you receive a reply.
So far, this works great. Let me know when it starts working for you and tell me what you think.