'Road SMS' encourages you to text while walking

We haven't actually seen it for ourselves, but we're hearing the Samsung Galaxy S can download an interesting little app. Called Road SMS, the basic idea is that the phone's camera constantly runs to let you see through the screen, while a virtual keyboard allows your fingers to safely text whomever you want. Needless to say, it's a very bad idea for number of reasons -- not least of which the fact that thumbs will always obscure the screen -- but we'll leave discussion of the pros and cons for the comments below. To be frank, we don't think folks will use this app seriously. We're just hoping someone will develop an augmented reality joke version that, ever so often, generates ghostly images of high speed oncoming traffic. And remember kids, don't text and drive.

[hawkXcore Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:04PM]

So who's going to kang this so I can try it on my droid?

[liftedngifted1 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:22PM]

@hawkXcore But who txt's like that??

[air on Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:24PM]

@hawkXcore Are you sure you're going to be using this a lot? Camera in the background will drain battery.

[MrFluffyThing Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:29PM]

@air on It will also still drain attention. Who focuses on the background when you type, even if it is the camera?

[AdamZSG Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:40AM]

@hawkXcore

I will if you get me the APK.
This is a must-have if for nothing else but laughs.

AdamZ
[SG]

[Megazine Posted Jul 15th 2010 7:38AM]

Old tech! iPhone had this for over 3 years.

[Kangal Posted Jul 15th 2010 10:43AM]

@hawkXcore

Who can kang, Kangal can!

[Triscuit Posted Jul 15th 2010 11:41AM]

@AdamZSG I'm sure you get this all the time, but can I please get some SG love for FroYo? As in SG 7.0?

[Mustangsamjr Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:04PM]

Isn't there an iPhone app for that?

[TheSunman89 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:09PM]

@Mustangsamjr if there is...it's probably made by some kid in India......lol

[sharukh007 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:27PM]

@Mustangsamjr yeah. It's called messagey. The problem is it's like a free texting app so messages don't send through your phone number.

[That guy 2 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:28PM]

@Mustangsamjr They've had an iPhone app for that for a while, and duh there's an app for that ;) there's an SMS app that allows you the option to have your background be whatever your camera is seeing (inside the app, not on your homescreen, when is there gonna be a live wallpaper for that on android, i would actually be impressed and watch the vid attached, that would be cool to see, of course I don't personally want it, I have an iPhone so you can't even do it, which is fine) anyways, I would like to point out that when engadget said some new feature is available on the iPhone, people said "hey my super amazing (translate:sucky) phone can do that, engadget is just biased and only reporting it cause it's apple" now we can say "hey my super amazing (translate:ditto) iPhone has done that for a while, engadget is just biased and does anything android" there is actually more android news than iPhone hypocrites, count for a week the number of android posts, iPhone/apple posts, and other posts, don't cheat,
Sent from my iPhone 20 via tech time travel reader engadget edition year 2026

[DefPoet Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:44PM]

@That guy 2
Dude paragraphs please. I don't mind reading long postal but make it easy please

[GoBucksBeatBlue Posted Jul 15th 2010 2:00AM]

@That guy 2
Theres 1 iPhone
There are many many Android devices.

How can you even compare the number of posts each one gets?

[Relay3r Posted Jul 15th 2010 2:25AM]

@That guy 2 tl;dr

shhh

[dsgorham Posted Jul 15th 2010 11:38AM]

@GoBucksBeatBlue There are 4 iPhones.

[GoBucksBeatBlue Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:47PM]

@dsgorham
They pretty much only have stories on the latest iPhone tho

[cdf74dc9 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:05PM]

Don't let the car hit you on your way out.

[Anders Posted Jul 15th 2010 11:55AM]

@cdf74dc9

Seriously, this must come with some crazy disclaimer language and I hope the developer has a lawyer on speed dial.

I can just see it now "The developer said it was safe to text and drive using this program! I'm not responsible for my unsafe driving!"

[Gamecheater Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:05PM]

There's been an iPhone app for this for a long time.

Way to post things that have already been done.

[Dafrety Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:10PM]

@Gamecheater
The iPhone got an incredibly dangerous and stupid app first? Well, I guess that's one market it's a leader in.

[That guy 2 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:33PM]

@Gamecheater Yah I know, I just commented saying that hypocrite android fanboys say "we already had this engadget is only reporting it cause it's apple" when A: just cause you got it first doesn't mean it's better or that the other is less important (most likely both unimportant) and B: now we get to say "apple did it first, engadget is biased toward android" but that makes us hypocrites...but were only saying it to show them how stupid they sound and show them we can play their way too, how about android fanboys just stop being so anti apple, and we will stop being soooooo anti android, at least in comments on engadget, except for jokes that are amusing, or once in a while to actually prove a point other than "this sucks" more like "this article: www..com proves that this design will not improve blah because blah blah blah"
Thank you engadget commenters

[rickane58 Posted Jul 14th 2010 11:00PM]

@That guy 2
This is for all of your posts:

Please break up your long winded posts into clear sections.

Sincerely
Tired Comment Readers ( and their brains)

[tobsmonster2 Posted Jul 14th 2010 11:11PM]

@That guy 2
Ever notice how every apple related post gets like 300+ posts? Its because anti-apple android fanboys flock to them to preach crap. The same can't be said of apple fan boys and android posts because they rarely get as many comments, thus proving android fanboys are worst than apple fanboys. I don't care either way everyone just needs to love their phone and stfu.

[Ruben Posted Jul 14th 2010 11:14PM]

@That guy 2 Your comment confuses and infuriates me!

[EightBitHeroics Posted Jul 15th 2010 12:13AM]

@Dafrety
Nailed it. They just been Nard-Dawged!

[Gamecheater Posted Jul 15th 2010 12:51AM]

@Gamecheater

Lol @ being downranked for pointing out something.

I don't even own a phone and apparently people are assuming I'm some sort of fanboy.

[Dafrety Posted Jul 15th 2010 1:31AM]

@Gamecheater
People are downranking you because what you said is completely irrelevant. Why does it matter that the iPhone had this terrible app first?

[tobsmonster2 Posted Jul 15th 2010 6:18AM]

@tobsmonster2
No replies, just down ranks? That says a lot.

[goseki Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:05PM]

peripheral vision = fail .. death imminent

[constantgamer247 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:06PM]

I'de hit that

[ror Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:08PM]

well, you could always, you know... just peck at the keys with your index finger. people already text while walking, anyway. might as well give em a camera to supplement peripheral vision

and again, what is the point of this "alt" version of engadget? I mean, really.

[DCTenor1 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:09PM]

@ror It's for crappy articles about things that have been on other platforms for years

[HankG Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:17PM]

@DCTenor1 You're funny looking.

[archkron Posted Jul 15th 2010 11:56AM]

@ror

I have a phone with buttons, so this is useless for me. I don't need to look at the screen, I can touch type.

[adamjustadam Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:08PM]

Yah this has been out for iPhone for a year.... grats on catching up

[GeneralThade Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:11PM]

Google voice-to-text is significantly faster and less dangerous.

[That guy 2 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:37PM]

@GeneralThade Yea but less accurate, you need to somewhat yell/annunciate and talk clearly, at least for voice searches, the iPhone gets voice commands If you just in a regular calm voice say what you want, as if your talking to it, even in a loud room, plus voice control pauses all sounds being made by the iPhone, vs android where the voice search thing is a little pop up that does nothing but take up the screen and tell you the mic is ready to be spoken to, pandora keeps going, music apps keep going, and it says "communication failure" or something, apple did it right, again

[JONNNathannn Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:45PM]

@That guy 2 Android can do conversational voice input, that's why its so great.

[MarqBland Posted Jul 14th 2010 11:59PM]

@That guy 2

Well the Android music player pauses for voice command, so that tells me that it's a Pandora issue on Android, not anything that Google needs to fix.

[ThreeDee912 Posted Jul 15th 2010 12:02AM]

@JONNNathannn

Hopefully this guy gets banned, he's been spamming long-winded posts like that all over the place.

[nnata Posted Jul 15th 2010 3:56AM]

@That guy 2 - That is the longest sentence and worst grammar I have ever seen.

[silverton64 Posted Jul 15th 2010 9:27PM]

@nnata It's not really a sentence because he didn't put a period at the end. lol

[Dafrety Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:11PM]

Why does something like this exist at all? I wish people would stop trying to kill themselves quicker, they seem to have a problem of taking others with them.

[salamander Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:12PM]

maybe it should highlight moving objects or sound an alarm if it sees something you didn't, or would this just be fighting natural selection?

[trueluck3 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:13PM]

Just look up between key presses...

[Kaazoo Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:13PM]

There's already an app that does the exact same thing on the Apple App Store for iPhones. People were joking and pointing out that some people are probably going to use it while driving.

[Alexpeegs Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:22PM]

*sends message*...OH SNAP A CAR....(does a barrel roll)...keeps on txting

[hell hound Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:25PM]

text while walking/driving!! Gee what could go wrong with that!!

[Bud92 Posted Jul 14th 2010 10:31PM]

Commenters can be scary sometimes.