Getting in the Last Word with iChat and SMS

Chat etiquette is something of a lost art with my friends. We have the sort of relationship where they just sign off in the middle of a conversation because they know that I will forgive them. Call me a doormat, but I accept my friends for who they are despite the sting of hearing the slamming door sound before I could send the punchline to my joke. With this tip, you’ll be able to have that last word or continue the conversation when your buddy signs off.

The integration between iChat and Address Book is something that never ceases to amaze me. Users are able to drag and drop Address Book listings into a category in their buddy list and screenames contained therein are populated. AIM has been able to transmit text messages since 2003, but iChat and Adium are able to handle these plus signs and numbers with grace and organizational ease. Here’s how you can organize your contacts in Address Book so that you can reach them by IM when online and SMS when they sign off.

Start with a contact that has a mobile number in your address book:

Hit the edit button and add another screename for your contact using their mobile number. You’ll need to remove the hyphens from the number and add a +1 to the front of the number like this:

Click the edit button to seal the deal, and in true Apple style you can just drag and drop the address card into your buddy list and iChat takes care of the rest.

If your buddy is online, iChat will send your IMs through their active screename and when their offline (as shown above) your IM will go directly to their mobile. If they respond, you’ll see it pop up in the chat window. Say your contact is online and you want to text them anyway; click the drop down menu at the top of your chat window to select their mobile number and text away.

In the not so distant past, iChat would log mobile numbers numerically in the buddy list by default. I can’t remember the lyrics to “The Bear Went over the Mountain” let alone whose phone number is which. Compiling multiple screen names under a single contact is brilliance, and taking away my reasons for leaving my notebook and searching for my mobile, aka physical activity, is as refreshing as two swiss cake rolls and a pint of Guinness.