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Information About the Android App

expand_more Why should I use Pulse?

We have the features you care about!

Message quickly and easily from anywhere with our tablet, web, and Chrome/Firefox apps.

expand_more How do I download the app?

Easy - download the app from it's Play Store page, then come back here to find all the platform add-ons!

expand_more How much does it cost? (Hint: nothing for most people!)

We are not looking to make much money off this product. It was built because, "cool, look what we can do!", and since we wanted something like this to use ourselves.

The text messaging side of Pulse will be completely free. Use the app just like you would any other text messaging app on your phone, and you will pay NOTHING! Pretty cool right?

That being said, you will have to pay for a membership to use the app on any device other than your phone. The service has a 1 week, free trial as well!

For the paid portion of the app, you will be able to choose between a one-time, LIFETIME, membership for $10.99 or pay with a subscription for $5.99 / year. So you will have the option to pay as you go, or pay up front for a bit of a discount. We feel as though these are VERY REASONABLE prices and hope you agree.

expand_more Why is the app only for Android 5.0 and above?

This is due to some system constraints. Before Android 5.0, many third party apps had issues sending MMS messages, our apps included. When Android 5.0 came out, Google included a system level method for sending MMS messages, that this app relies on.

If you are not on Android 5.0+ and still would like to try out our work, EvolveSMS is our other messaging product, tailored much more towards power users, looking for an insanely custom look with a crazy amout of different features and configuration options. It comes highly recommended, check it out!

expand_more Groan, why did you guys make a new messaging app?

For people that have used Klinker Apps work in the past, you know that our other messaging app EvolveSMS, has been out for around three years now. We do not consider Pulse to be in direct competition with EvolveSMS.

EvolveSMS is all about the power user. Completely custom layouts with a crazy powerful theme engine for custom theme support. Settings pages full of tweaks and options to make things completely your own. A massive feature set full of things that most people do not understand, need, or use. All of these things have directly influenced the success of EvolveSMS, but they are NOT for everyone.

Pulse looks to change that. This is Klinker Apps product that is beautiful right out of the box, has a bunch of color customizations for those that want it, has some awesome, text messaging, features (blacklisting, scheduled messages, mutes, snooze mode, per contact notification settings, pinned conversations), and has one killer feature: seamless support for texting from literally anywhere.

It didn't make sense to add tablet/web support like this to EvolveSMS. We wanted some thing simplier, something that just worked, so Pulse was born.

expand_more What if I had already paid for all the EvolveSMS addons?

All the features and customization comes for free in Pulse, so the good news is, you are not missing out on a thing!

In EvolveSMS, desktop messaging was always an add-on that you had to go through a third party provider for (Yappy or Pushbullet). With Pulse there is no reason to go through and continue paying for these third party providers any longer. Since this is the way it was in Evolve, you will not receive a discount on the membership costs.

expand_more What about RCS support?

This is something I would love to have, however, it may take time without Google's support. They bought Jibe (a company focused on bringing RCS to the masses) in Sept. 2015. It still took them well over a year to roll out support after that million dollar buyout. I don't have those funds right now, so without support from Google (which I am hoping they will provide), it isn't realistic to think that RCS will come quickly to any third party applications.

On top of that, the specifications are not public. No apps will even be able to consider adding it until the protocols are available. Once they are made public, I will be able to investigate implementing them further. RCS support should be tracked on this issue.

expand_more Does the app work with Google Voice?

Unfortunately, no. Google Voice is not an open platform for developers. Until Google opens it up, the app will not be able to have any type of integration with your Google Voice number.

expand_more Does the app work with custom ROMs?

The phone app works 100% fine with custom ROMs.

The web app will work completely fine with most custom ROMs. To send messages from the web, the app relies completely on Google's Firebase Cloud Messaging infrastructure to instantly deliver messsages to your phone to get sent. As long as you have correctly set up Google Play Services on the ROM, Pulse will work fine.

The last thing to note would be issues around LineageOS based ROMs. If you have Pulse on a secondary device, without a SIM card, that OS will pester you to select a SIM card, for some reason. I can fix this, if you send me an email.

Tips and Tricks

expand_more How do I use emojis?

Any modern keyboard will be able to insert emojis for you, so there isn't really a reason to build this directly in to Pulse. What phone/keyboard are you using? If the button doesn't immediately appear, then you can usually long click the action key to access the emojis.

If your keyboard doesn't seem to support emojis, then I recommend checking out Google's Gboard keyboard. It works great, and will allow you to insert emojis anywhere, not just in my app.

expand_more I deleted/swiped a conversation away, how do I get it back?

By default, Pulse will send any conversations that you swipe away, to the archive. That archive is really what acts as the "trash can" for Pulse. Conversations can be restored from there and are automatically restored when you get a new message.

If you did turn on swipe to delete, then unfortunately that conversation really is gone. There is no way to restore these conversations.

expand_more How does the dual SIM support work?

Within any conversation, if you have a dual SIM device, there will be a little "SIM" button next to the attach button. Selecting it will allow you to select which SIM card you want to use. Your selection will be saved for the next time you open the conversation.

Both sent and received messages will display what SIM they were sent from, next to the timestamp. To see this, click on any message.

If you are having issues with the dual SIM functionality, some devices handle it differently. Please check out this issue for more information on how to get it working!

expand_more Why do scheduled messages send immediately?

To accomadate Google's battery saving method, Doze Mode, Pulse utilizes an internal Android service: JobScheduler. What this means though, is that if you schedule a message within 10 mins, it will get sent immediately, instead of at the scheduled time.

Message from Anywhere (Account Help)

expand_more What services can I access my text messages from?

Obviously the first (and FREE) way to access your messages, is through our Android app. Just download it and use it like any other text messaging app on your phone!

There is also support for accessing your messages from ANYWHERE. If you subscribe to our service, you can create an account with us and send messages through a number of different methods:

expand_more How do I know my messages are safe and private (encryption overview)?

This app is an SMS app, and SMS is highly insecure by its nature. There is no way to encrypt or protect your conversations as they go between you and your contacts, any SMS/MMS app telling you otherwise is lying to you.

Along with SSL (obviously), we use strong, end-to-end, encryption techniques, for your messages going to and from our server, to ensure your data is kept secure and no one but you can access it (even us!).

This means that on our servers, your messages are encrypted using your password and even we cannot see what they contain. The only way to decrypt them is with your password within one of our official apps.

Was this overview not enough (or technical enough) for you? Please check out the technical overview for a much more detailed look, and to find out how you can verify it yourself.

expand_more What if messages fail to send through the web or devices other than my phone?

To send messages, we rely on Google's Firebase service. Firebase manages sending push notifications to your phone. Unfortunately there is no way around this third party reliance.

If messages stop being sent from the web, then something undoubtably got out of date, whether on Firebase's end or ours, and that will need to be fixed. Luckily, it is an easy fix.

Within the Android app, head to your "My account" section. It is the top option in the navigation drawer. Within that section, you will find a preference to "Refresh Account". Take the refresh all the way through (entering your email and password), then just log in again on your other devices, once everything is finished.

expand_more Do you offer a backup and restore service for the messages?

Yes, this is what our entire service is based around. Login to your account on any device and it will get the messages.

However, it should be noted that the messages that the app restores do not go to any apps other than ours, they will not be able to be seen in you default messaging application, at this time.

It should also be noted that this is a feature that comes with your subscription or lifetime membership. Since the subscription allows you to create an account, it will not be possible to apply the backup to an unsubscribed user.

expand_more I have two phones. Can I use this app on phone "x" to text from phone "y"?

Yes, this would be possible. Please continue reading for some notes on how.

Our app centralizes around the idea of a "primary device" that all SMS/MMS communication has to go through. Whenever you log in with a phone (not tablet), that has a phone number, this device gets set as your "primary device". So, whatever phone you sign in with last, will be the one that text messages are actually sent through.

So, if you have two phones ("x" and "y"), pick which phone number you want to actually sent send messages through, then just ensure that you log in to that phone last. I would recommend the following procedure:

  • Pick phone "x" as the device that you want to send messages through.
  • Create an account using phone "x" so that its messages are the ones synced to the cloud.
  • Log in to your account using phone "y".
  • Clear the app data on phone "x" so that you can do a clean sign in again.
  • When you sign in to the app on phone "x", it will set this device as the primary device, and you will be able to see the original messages that were stored on that device

Sorry the procedure isn't easier to follow. This scenario isn't at all the goal of this app. However, this method will work just fine.

expand_more I uninstalled the app for awhile, why isn't it finding my old subscription?

The Play Store is in charge on managing purchase restorations, and sometimes they really suck at it. You can see this gripe with any developer that manages in-app purchases on Google Play.

If this happens to you, please follow these steps:

  1. Sign up for a new trial within the app. This will allow you to log into your account and start using the app.
  2. Send me an email that contains the original order number for your puchase.
  3. I will use that to upgrade your account manually
  4. You can then go to the Play Store and cancel your new trial, so that you do not get charged again

expand_more I uninstalled the app for awhile, when I logged in again, it doesn't have any of my recent messages!

Whenever you log in, at this time, it will clear your internal database and download everything from the cloud to your device. To pull all the new data into your account:

  1. Open up the My Account section in the navigation drawer, on your phone.
  2. Select the option to Resync Messages
  3. This will take you through the initial import again, and all of the messages from the internal SMS/MMS database will replace what is currently in your account.
expand_more Why does the my computer give me double notifications when a new message comes in?

This is because you are getting a notification from both the Chrome app and extension. Uninstalling one of these will get rid of the double notifiation issue.

expand_more What if my computer isn't giving me notifications?

Something probably got off in the push notification configuration. The fix is pretty easy. Just log out on the Chrome app/extension, then uninstall it from "chrome://extensions/", then reinstall and log in again.

expand_more How does the Android Wear app work?

The Android Wear app makes full utilization of Android Wear 2.0's new standalone apps. It can be downloaded from the Play Store directly on the watch. After it is downloaded, you can head to wear.klinkerapps.com to log in to your account.

Since the Wear app is completely standalone, it acts just like a tablet would, on your account. It doesn't communicate directly with the phone, like older Android Wear apps do, it communicates with our backend servers, and then messages get sent to the phone from there. For this reason, the wearable app does require an account with Pulse.

expand_more What iOS support does the app have?

If you check out the iOS support page, I go into detail about the levels of support, for the different platforms.

Picture/Group Messaging Support (MMS)

expand_more I am not able to send MMS or group messages, what should I do?

By default, Pulse relies completely on system level methods to send MMS messages. So if it isn't working with the app, something useful to let me know about is if it is working with your stock app, or Google's own Messenger app.

To troubleshoot issues, the first thing I would try would be to put in your own APN settings. If you go to "MMS Configuration" section, in the three dot overflow of settings, there will be a place to put them in. These APNs are specific to your carrier, so you would have to find the ones that match your carrier. This is a pretty easy Google search for "insert carrier MMS APN settings".

The other, maybe more likely solution, would be to try lowering the max size of the MMS, via the same settings section. Different carriers have different limitations on the size of the media that can be sent. If you carrier only supports 1 MB, then that is the value you should use in Pulse, as well.

If all else fails, please send me an email, we can try to troublesoot possible solutions to the problem. I can also get more information this way, so that the process can be improved for the future.

expand_more Every MMS I get is received multiple times, days after the original. What do I do?

Some carriers require an acknowledgement when an MMS is received. If they don't get it, then they redeliver the MMS. Pulse (and most other third party apps), uses Android's built in, "system", method to download MMS so that you don't have to worry about manually entering your APN information and dealing with changes to it. For whatever reason, Google's built in method does not provide this acknowledgment.

Pulse allows you to get around this, although it does require you to input some of your APN information manually. Please follow this process:

  1. Head to Global Settings -> MMS Configuration.
  2. Turn on the toggle to Override System APNs. This will let you input information into the fields below.
  3. You will need to input your carrier specific information for the first three items: MMSC URL, MMS Proxy, and MMS Port. You can find these with a Google search for "your carrier MMS APNs".
  4. Turn off the toggle to Override System APNs.
expand_more Why are my GIFs and videos, that I send, so small?

The majority of carriers enforce a 1 MB size limit on MMS attachments. This unfortunately means that the quality and resolution of content like videos needs to be decreased (sometimes substantially) so that it can fit under that limit, but still be useful to the recipient.

Since this restriction is already in place through carriers, it is not something we will be able to work around or improve in the app.

Support, Contact, and Feature Requests

expand_more The app is missing a translation, can I help translate!?

I would LOVE that! All of our translations are crowd-sourced through OneSky app.

If you make a contribution, let me know via any of the methods below and I will be sure to pull your changes into the app!

expand_more Do you accept feature requests?

Yes, OF COURSE. We are excited to hear from our users and how we can improve the app! Feel free to reach out to us and let us know of your ideas. We are a very small team, so some things will take time, but we try to get things done reasonably quickly, especially when we are also excited about your idea!

Feel free to give requests through any communication medium, but the best place to make a report would be on our public issue tracker. If you are going to submit a request through this tool, please be sure to read the README that is opened from the link, search through the current requests to avoid duplication, and follow the template for submitting requests.

expand_more Where can I report bugs?

The best place to give a bug report would be on our public issue tracker. If you are going to submit a report through this tool, please be sure to read the README that is opened from the link, search through the current issues to avoid duplication, and follow the template for submitting requests.

We are also active on pretty much all forms of social media. If you get in touch with us through some method, chance are VERY high that we will see it. The best place to report bugs would be our Google+ Community or through email, since those methods don't have any text size limitations.

expand_more How can I get in touch with you?

There are many different mediums of communication to get in touch with us. Your best bet for a quick response is email, but if you would like help from other users of our app, hit up the Google+ community.