AutoForward SMS for Android has been around since 2015 (almost 6 years!) and while the old app is still running (and will continue to run) flawlessly, we decided to no longer invest in outdated technology. We instead went to rebuild the entire app from the scratch – which we did this summer when the team met in Ecuador.
We are proud of the new app as it is not only faster but also more stable and future-proof. This article covers why we think the new app is better than its predecessor and why you should update asap.
Table of Contents
What’s New?
Version 1 of our app had many amazing features but also its share of pain points – many of which we tried to address with the current release.
Subscription Management
Managing plans, subscriptions, and payment methods should always be possible directly from within the app. Starting with version 2.0 you can now manage all payment-related aspects yourself. Just open the app, tap Account, and then Account Management.
To find out more about how we secure your personal & payment information please refer to stripe.com
Portable Settings
Wouldn’t it be awesome when your rules and settings could move with you from one phone to the next one? With the new app, you can do just that. All settings (rules, subscriptions & more) are stored in a secure cloud location. Should you decide to switch phones, just log in with the same account and all your settings will be synced!
Social Networks
With the old app, you had to use a combination of your email address and a phone number in order to log in/activate your subscription. This was cumbersome and sometimes led to problems receiving activation text messages (SMS). Recovering your account was also only possible with the help of our support team.
Nowadays almost all Android phones work in conjunction with a Google account. We decided to build on top of that functionality and allow you to use either your Google or your Facebook account to log into our app.
This means you have one less account to maintain and also streamlines account management for us. Two birds one stone!
We are using Google/Facebook only to authenticate your account. No data is being shared besides the email you are using with them already.
PRO TIP
Privacy 2.0
We believe that privacy and anonymity are of paramount importance when working online. This is why our app is asking for a minimal set of permissions and does not store any messages. Every piece of information is discarded right after its forwarded.
This has always been the case with AutoForward SMS for Android but we nevertheless wanted to mention it!
Languages
The new app adapts to the user’s settings and has (so far) been translated into 7 languages. (Chinese, English, German, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Thai).
Are you interested in helping us out with some more translations? Just drop us a message at support@autoforwardsms.com we’d greatly appreciate it.
What’s Missing?
While we tried to make sure that all existing features and functions are available in the new app, some of them didn’t quite cut it (yet). We left out some pieces that we felt weren’t quite as necessary as the others – this allowed us to stay lean and quickly ship a new version with a cleaner UI that’s also easier to understand.
This section lists features that were available in AutoForward SMS v1 but haven’t (yet) been ported to v2. Should you like to see a feature ported, please let us know so we can prioritize it accordingly in our backlog.
Forwarding Outgoing Messages
The Forwarding outgoing messages feature has been left out for technical reasons but we are working hard to get it back in within the next couple of releases.
Contacts & Groups
Accessing contacts requires a set of permissions (reading the address book) that many people are not comfortable giving. We went ahead and cut out that feature until we find a better way to integrate it into the app at a later point in time.
The Groups feature wasn’t used much but would have been significantly more work to integrate into the new app.
Battery Warnings & Call Alerts
Battery Warnings always felt out-of-place as they are in no way related to message forwarding. If we have battery warnings, why not have storage warnings or other system-related notifications?
Call alerts are used by a relatively low number of customers and have been left out for this reason. We plan to add them back in based should enough customers need it.
Summary
We believe that the vast majority of our customers will greatly enjoy switching to the new app. We recommend that you give it a try (it can run in parallel to the old app).
To help you get started, we have put together a getting started guide and an email forwarding guide