Punctuation triggering 70-character max SMS

Question

Punctuation triggering 70-character max SMS

Has anyone noticed that when sending an SMS from iPhone (did it on my 64gb 6S+ and is currently on my 64gb 8+) to an Android phone, the punctuation marks ' and " will trigger the character count to drop from 160 max to 70? Obviously it does it if you use an emoji, but I wonder if there's some bug in iOS that is seeing these punctuation marks as objects instead of characters or something. I can't remember if it has been since before the iOS 11 update that this has been going on or not. Also my carrier is Sprint.

iPhone 8 Plus, iOS 11

Posted on Oct 4, 2017 8:49 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

go-electric

Level 1

10 points

Oct 14, 2017 10:10 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

The setting you need to change is in General/Keyboard/Smart Punctuation

Apple decided to enable "Smart Punctuation" by default for iOS11. Great for 'typograph-anatics', costly for SMS users and a fail for anyone with an apostrophe in their password or username or wanting to do data entry.

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Answer 2

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,330 points

Oct 4, 2017 11:12 AM in response to DocHolliday1186

They should look different. more an ill-conceived new feature than a bug...

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Answer 3

Oct 4, 2017 10:10 AM in response to Tom Gewecke

Thanks, that did resolve it. But that's still got to be some sort of bug, right? In past iOS versions this wasn't an issue. and in texting/iMessage they look the same so there's no reason for it to try and format.

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Answer 4

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,330 points

Oct 4, 2017 10:11 AM in response to DocHolliday1186

If your punctuation is of the "smart/curly" variety, it may trigger the same kind of issue as emoji. Check whether you have this turned on in some setting.

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