Did you know that using accents in an SMS message increases its size?

You write a lot of text messages every day, but it is strange that your operator is charging “double” for messages, even if you only send one at a time? Be aware that the culprit for this unexpected increase in the bill may be the accents you use in words.

An SMS message is limited to 160 characters; if you send more than that, the operator will automatically divide it into two (or more) torpedoes, without any warning or authorization. Therefore, the number of letters must be controlled by the user.

Since iOS 4, the iPhone has incorporated the practical character count function. This is very useful for knowing how much we can still write, and at the same time alerts us to an important detail: accented letters occupy more spaces in the message than meets the eye.

This is because the system uses additional codes to indicate that a character is accented. Because of this, when accentuating a word it is possible to notice that the available limit drops from 160 to 70, that is, less than half. This is the reason that the most distracted end up sending two messages instead of one.

This does not happen only with the iPhone, it is a “problem” of the current SMS system itself and therefore it affects all smartphones.

Interestingly, the accented letter “is”Does not change the maximum counter number. Bug or feature?

The tip is to look don’t accentuate your torpedoes, or when you do, have control of the character limit written in the message. ?

The column Did you know is aimed at beginners iOS users. To see the previous tips, be sure to access this link.