What is the purpose ot TTY on the iphone?

Yes you could use SMS unless the person receiving the message is using a landline or doesn't have SMS texting as part of their carriers plan.

Using TTY requires that the land line phone be able to receive and display the message. Those that use it depend on it so it was included in the phone as standard.

pseudonym1904 wrote:

I do not know one adult who does not own a cellphone with SMS capabilities. It seem like a moot point to have TTY as the standard. The TTY devices are big and bulky. The technology was developed during the late 1960's. The devices cost anywhere from $200 to $2000. It just seems like a worthless function. The iPhone may as well have the function of playing a cassette tape.

Then why post the question in the first place, when a simple Google would have answered it in the first place, as you undoubtebly have found out?

Please do not feed the trolls.

pseudonym1904 wrote:

I do not know one adult who does not own a cellphone with SMS capabilities.

Now you know of at least one. But that's irrelevant. Most companies do not provide their employees with cellphones on a blanket basis and would not allow a personal cellphone to be used for business purposes. In some cases, as with medical data, that would in fact be illegal in many countries. Hence TTY devices may well be still in operation, and in fact highly necessary. Just because you don't see the need to TTY capabilities does not mean that there is indeed no need.

Was their some real reason for your question, or as Felipe suggested are you just trolling?

Most ≠ All. When you state things such as...

I do not know one adult who does not own a cellphone with SMS capabilities. It seem like a moot point to have TTY as the standard.

and

It just seems like a worthless function.

you quickly identify yourself as someone is clearly quite young and "doesn't know what they don't know". FYI, there are millions of adults that don't text or have a smartphone... many of which need and use TTY. Thus the responses you got. Clearly, if there was no need for TTY, then Apple (or any other manufacturer) would not have included it. It's pretty logical to assume that Apple would not have invested the money and resources to implement this feature if it was unnecessary.

pseudonym1904 wrote:

I do not know one adult who does not own a cellphone with SMS capabilities..

Which probably means you know very few adults over the age of 30. From what I've gathered, you're not Deaf. Does the iPhone having this feature, which may assist some people who are Deaf and improve the quality of their lives, harm you in any way? If not, why does it matter to you?

pseudonym1904 wrote:

Let me start with the origin of my question. A friends iPhone had the TTY icon in his status bar and had never seen it before. Nobody could hear him when he made a call. After some googling we found out what the icon meant.

We both agreed that the function on the iPhone seemed a little superflous since the iPhone had SMS capability. I have never seen a TTY device in my life.

Then your friend isn't very bright. The feature did not just turn itself on. A brief look at the manual would have explained what it was.

You believe it serves no purpose because you have never seen one. I have never seen you, either, therefore I must draw the same conclusion.

1. Most adults over 30 have an attention span and language skills that benefit by not having the 160 character limit of SMS. Would you try to text your last post to someone?

2. TTY capability in digital wireless devices is now required by the FCC, like it or not.

Because not everyone which whom someone who is hearing-impaired might want to communicate uses cellphones with SMS. TTY devices have been around a long time and many businesses and organizations have them.

Regards.

Your dismissive and arrogant attitude, which clearly was apparent from your first and subsequent posts,was in no way framed to ellicit a response to your original a priori query/doubt; something that was satisfied and answered, as you yourself admit, even before you posted here.

pseudonym1904 wrote:

I do not know one adult who does not own a cellphone with SMS capabilities. It seem like a moot point to have TTY as the standard. The TTY devices are big and bulky. The technology was developed during the late 1960's. The devices cost anywhere from $200 to $2000. It just seems like a worthless function. The iPhone may as well have the function of playing a cassette tape.

Believe it or not, there are actually LANDLINE PHONES still in use in the world. Most businesses still have them. And, much to your amazement, landline phones CANNOT SEND OR RECEIVE SMS!!!!! Businesses in the US and many other countries are required to provide TTY service for hearing-impaired customers. So Apple chose to provide a valuable feature to hearing-impaired iPhone users to let them communicate with people who still have copper wires to their homes and businesses.

I agree with you I just learned of the TTY and didn't know what the abreviation meant I looked it up and found that it also is TDD or telecommunication device for the deaf then also found out it was available for iPhone I then began to wonder not why it was available for iPhone but why it was available for a cellphone in general seeing as how most cell phones are able to send the letters

Of the alphabet through the phone without calling someone so I got curious because there could have been a legitimate reason on why it was needed so I looked it up this was the only same question I was able to quickly find on the results that came up when I typed my question excited to Learn something knew I clicked the link and was very disappointed
<Edited by Host>

Your answer was the most helpful and

Not at all rude like some others i am not that old but had an older phone at one point and remembers having a character limit so I guess it would be a little inconvenient if you were trying to send a long message but I do remember being able to type more than the allowed characters it would just send multiple messages at a time and split it at the given character limit in each message as for the age of 30 regardless of how old society thinks that is apparently... it still seems fairly young for them to be able to adapt to a newer cellphone most people I know and I'm talking about just two people here but I don't think I should have to think and count how many that seems Irrelevant have a newer if not newer at least touch screen cell phone and for house phones most are wireless not trying to be rude to you because I'm hoping you can be a bit more helpful than others and maybe I'm just not smart enough to get it so if you could take the time just to dumb it down for me in that case

I do not know one adult who does not own a cellphone with SMS capabilities.

Aren't you myopic.