iPhone: If you have one person you tend to message with a lot, Other is a very simple little app that makes sending a canned message to them easier.

Ending a text message with a period might make it grammatically correct, but a recent study suggests it can also make it seem cold and insincere.

Mac: If you've been using Messages for a while, you may not want to let your archived messages go when you move to a new Mac. iCloud should backup and restore a lot of it, but if that history goes back pretty far, it won't get it all. iMore shows you how to make sure it comes over to your new computer.

Apple's iMessage is great when it works, but several recent outages haven't made it a little unreliable. Fortunately your iPhone can send any iMessage as an SMS text message when the service is down. Lifehacker reader Raj Nagra explains.

The text message is far from dead, but smartphone apps that let you chat with others (whether via text, video or voice) without charging you for every single message are increasingly popular. We've rounded up five of the most popular choices.

iOS (Jailbroken): One of the problems with iMessage is that the service doesn't automatically group your contact's different information together. So, if you get a message from an email address, it doesn't combine that with previous messages from a phone number. Merge is a jailbreak tweak that fixes this.

I've been giving text messaging a hard time today, noting how I couldn't get SMS check-in to work and then pointing out the flaws in . But while I can't claim I'm a manic texter, I suspect reports of texting's death are somewhat premature.

iPhone (Jailbroken): If you hate responding to texts on your phone and would prefer to do it on the desktop, DeskSMS will let you answer your messages via any IM client that supports Google Chat (or you can just use GChat in your browser). It requires a jailbreak and you might run into some setup issues, but it's definitely worth the trouble.

You're probably aware that your iPhone has a feature that displays previews of SMS text messages when they're received, and if you've ever received something private when you're not alone you know how embarrassing those previews can be. Fortunately there is a very simple way to disable them and keep people from accidentally seeing a conversation you'd rather keep to yourself.

Android: DeskSMS lets you manage your SMS messages from Gmail, GTalk, a speedy web interface, and even a Chrome extension — no number porting required, and it works in Australia.

Android: Viber is a free app we've previously featured for making free calls from an iPhone over 3G and Wi-Fi. Now available for Android, you can call or text other Viber users (including iPhone users) for free.

Android: Text messaging abbreviations are useful for the message sender, but annoying for the recipient. SMS Corrector converts incoming text talk (or txt tlk) into good English or French to save your sanity.

Android: For a much better SMS/MMS experience on Android, check out GO SMS Pro. This free app has an elegant, customisable UI and a ton of SMS features including scheduling, folders organisation, sending over Wi-Fi, and more — with very little memory usage too.

iPhone: If you find you're typing a lot of the same text messages over and over again, or you just need to send a common message quickly, Quicky! is an app that can help with both.

A vocal but seemingly small group of Android owners noticed that sometimes their SMS messages ended up going out to the wrong people. After much debate about user error versus bugs, Google has reproduced the error and is issuing fixes — which then depends on carriers to push them through.

We've already shown you how to shutdown Windows via SMS with Outlook and how to do the same on a Mac using Mail.app, but a user on the Hak5 forums demonstrates how to setup a similar SMS shutdown using the venerable Thunderbird email client. The method requires the Mailbox Alert extension and a little configuration, but once you're done you can save some power with a quick text message next time you forget to shutdown your computer. The tutorial is Windows-specific, but I'm guessing you could mesh the Mail.app method with this one and accomplish the same thing for OS X. Remote Shutdown Via SMS

US-centric: Health web site Diet.com's Nutrition on the Go service provides nutritional values for food items on popular restaurant menus via a simple text message. To use it, just text the name of the restaurant and the menu item you're looking for to DIET1 (34381)—for example, "mcdonalds southwest chicken salad." Diet.com will text you back with the nutritional values of your item, namely calories, fat, carbs, and protein. Granted, most restaurants (fast food, at least) should have that information available, but if you want a quick look-up in the drive-through or you don't want to be the one who makes employees blow the dust off the nutritional info, Nutrition on the Go seems like a service worth adding to your contacts. Nutrition on the Go - diet1 (34381)

Blogger and remote-control enthusiast Tim Matheson, who previously showed us how to shut down Windows using a text message, posts a script and easy-to-follow guide for doing the same on a Mac. Everything needed for the hack comes included with OS X Leopard, except the cell phone, of course. Matheson suggests setting up a "super-secret" email address that you only use for shutdown messages, but there are other ways of remote-controlling a Mac using keywords. Hit the link to download a safe shutdown script, and post your own remote-control computing tricks in the comments. HowTo: Shutdown your Mac with a text message

Windows with Outlook 2007 only: Send text messages in a dedicated Outlook interface with SMSOfficer, a free add-on for Outlook 2007. Once you finish the free sign-up and verification at SMSOfficer's site, you'll get a new menu item in Outlook, New->Text Message, where you can type in a phone number or contact and send a message of less than 160 characters (write more and it's split into multiple texts), with replies heading to your phone. You get 10 free texts, and additional credits can be purchased via PayPal—$US20 will get you 250 texts, with bulk discounts at higher volumes. Anyone with email access can send a text message by knowing the right carrier email addresses, but SMSOfficer strips out header text and is obviously convenient for Outlook acolytes. SMSOfficer is a free sign-up and download for Windows and Outlook 2007.

SMSOfficer