Txtpedia

By Jim Lynch on December 30th, 2008

I’m pushing 40 as I write this review and one of the differences between people of my generation and younger folks is that younger people tend to use text messaging much more than we do. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that those 30 and below are text messaging junkies especially the teenagers.

But what happens when the generations clash and you start getting texted by some of the young texting freaks? You know the type I’m talking about. The ones that live or die by their cell phones and that text back and forth non-stop, 24 hours a day.

Unless you’re incredibly hip or you’re willing to google you might not know what the hell these damn kids are saying as they pile texting abbreviation after texting abbreviation into a message to you. You’ll sit there wondering why on earth they can’t just type in plainenglish as you wade through message after message of gobbledygook. You might even feel ashamed that you don’t know what all these abbreviations are and you might wonder if you’re truly over the hill.

Translate texting, SMS or IM abbrevations.

Well thanks to Txtpedia you won’t have to wonder what those abbreviations mean any more and you too will be able to pretend you’re hip and with it. If you get a text message from a Gen Y or younger texting hipster, just fire up Txtpedia to find out what the heck they are talking about.

Txtpedia comes with over 1500 texting, SMS and IM abbreviations. You can search by abbreviation or you can “flip” and search by a phrase instead. As you scroll through all of the abbreviations you will wonder how on earth anybody – of any age – could keep track of all of them. I kid you not, there aresooooooooooooooooo freaking many abbreviations that people use.

The Verdict About Txtpedia
After using Txtpedia for a while I’m forced to wonder why somebody didn’t come up with the idea sooner. The app is only 0.1MB so it doesn’t take up much space on your iPhone but it’s incredibly useful when you are dealing with texting or even IM junkies.

The only danger with Txtpedia is that you too might turn into a texting-mad zombie that can no longer type in complete sentences and that starts using abbreviations even when it’s not appropriate. Still, if you can avoid falling into that trap, you will find Txtpedia to be a very useful application indeed.

Application: Txtpedia
Size: 0.1MB
Download Link: iTunes Store
Price: $0.99
The Good: Clues you in to what the heck people mean when they use texting abbreviations.
The Bad: Might turn you into a text message junkie.
The Verdict: A helpful app for anybody who has to deal with text messaging but can’t remember what various abbreviations mean.
Score: 4 out of 5