I used to have an iPhone 3GS and I never paid a dime to the texting plan. Don’t take the “haven’t paid a dime” part too seriously. I did pay a few bucks, but I wasn’t subscribed to heavy duty SMS packages. The reason is that these packages have hidden charges. Every time you run out of the bundle limit, the service plan automatically starts piling up on the bill.

Moving on with the SMS thing and the iPhone 3GS, I’d like to point out the advertisers’ text messages. If they happen to find your phone number through mutual friends, 3^rd party ad networks or any other medium, you are in for tons of messages throughout the day.

I keep on getting different kinds of text messages, ads — and every month; my phone memory keeps on getting clogged. To me, it is mostly trash, I mean c’mon, what does a guy think when in the middle of the night, his iPhone beeps and he taps it to read an ad for “Scented Tampons”.

On top of that, those AT&T guys are charging 20c off of each incoming text message and it is only because you don’t have a text plan. So the question is, how can you block the incoming text messages, which are not really desired by you?

Go ahead, and contact AT&T, and they’ll hook you up to their “Smart Limits for Wireless” package for $5 a month. You will be able to block unwanted messages and “Smart Limits” also means that your child won’t be able to pry in on your iPhone in any way.

Or, if you are more of a greedy shameless hog and you want to keep up with your age old Free Loading resolution, then jailbreak your OFFICIAL iPhone 3GS and go for the application called: iBlacklist. This application is going to do the dirty job for you, but don’t whine if your iPhone’s firmware gets “blacklisted” by Apple because we all know what happens when someone tries to “upgrade” his/her jailbroken iPhone.

Blocking SMS process has gone through a lot of changes. As of now, there are multiple apps and paid services available at the iPhone marketplace. If you have used any other application, a free service or a simple method to do the needful, share your experiences through the comments section below. You can also send an email to techguy@thenational.net.