iPhone Text Bomb Your Friends: The Ultimate SMS Prank

The very first text message was sent on December 3rd, 1992 by Neil Papworth, an engineer for Vodafone, and it simply said "Merry Christmas." He may have jumped the gun on the whole Christmas thing, but you trying coming up with the first text message in history!

Today, there are over 6 billion text messages sent each day in the states, and 8.6 trillion globally every year. With that many text messages flying around, you're bound to get overwhelmed at some point by someone a little overenthusiastic with their thumbs.

So, what better way to pay back that friend that texted you 8 messages in a row at 5 in the morn than with an SMS bomb using your iPhone?

Manual Text Bombing with Your iPhone

While you're probably not as fast as two-time National Texting Champion, Austin Wierschke, you can probably shoot out a couple of texts in rapid succession.

The message doesn't have to be long or contain any actual words; the main goal is to maximize annoyance by rapid fire.

I quickly tapped whatever letters I could and hit send immediately. I ended up sending about 26 messages in about 30 seconds. My roommate's phone vibrated non-stop until all the messages were received. Needless to say, he was a little peeved.

However, since he had iMessage enabled (as you can see by the blue text bubbles) the texts streamed in, instead of popping up as a ton of individual messages. To prevent this from happening, go to Settings -> Messages and disable iMessage. Your texts will now send as a regular (green) message.

Text Bombing on Your iPhone with Apps

There was a time when SMS bombing apps roamed free in the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. But after numerous complaints filed against these app makers, both companies made a concerted effort to get rid of as many of these apps as possible. While you may find a few after some time searching, they wildly over priced and have very poor reviews.

I scoured forums and searched online but no one could offer me a legitimate (non-jailbroken) alternative. I did find one Cydia app that does the trick. Sorry guys, but jailbreakers just have more fun, although having too much fun with this could land you in actual jail.

SMS Bomber (Cydia)

In Cydia, you'll have to add another source (repo): cydia.xsellize.com.

To do this, open Cydia, click on the Manage icon, and go to Sources. Click edit, and then click add. A pop-up menu will appear and this is where you input the source name. Once done, hit add and wait for Cydia to download all the necessary files. Then restart the Springboard. After the xsellize repo is added, you can now search Cydia for SMS Bomber.

Note: You will also need SBSettings for the application to work.

Once installed go to Messages and select a contact. Now select SBSettings and tape on the SMS Bomber app, which should be titled Orange SBS. Now enter the number of messages you wish to send to your victim (first column multiplied be second) and go back to Messages and hit send.

Take a look at this video to see how it works.

SMSFlooder (Cydia)

You can also download SMSFlooder in the Cydia store. It's located in the same xsellize repo, so no need to add another source.

Simply, search Cydia for SMSFlooder and install on you iPhone. You will also need BiteSMS from Cydia if you don't have it already. Once you have both of those applications installed and configured with your contacts the fun can begin.

Open up SMSFlooder and enter in a phone number or chose from your contacts by tapping the blue arrow next to the Sender field. Now enter how many messages you wish to send and the delay between each one. I found this app to be much easier and more fluid than SMS Bomber. No messing with SBSettings or leaving Messages and going back to the app. It all happens in one location.

Sorry, Nelson, but it was just to easy. Check out the video walkthrough below.

If you want to bypass the pitfalls about messaging rates and fees, you can email bomb your victims instead. With SMSFlooder via Bite SMS you can send an ridiculous amount of emails to a contacts email address. SMSFlooder is by far the best way to SMS bomb an iPhone contact, so be sure to hit up Cydia and download it for free.

Texting Bombing Online

If you search "SMS Bomber" or "How to send multiple texts to one person?" you will find a few results. I tested a few of them out, and many ask for registration or money, which I was not about to do. If you don't care, then there are a bunch of online offerings that'll help you SMS bomb a contact.

I did find one free online bomber that worked...well a little bit. Johnny Bravo's SMS bomber. Make sure to have your Adblocker on, because this site is obnoxious. All you need to do is type the number of your victim and write a message. You can choose any number you want, but be reasonable. I chose ten, and bombed myself.

I did get about 7 messages consecutively but that was it. I tried it again, but only got one the next time. Try it out for yourselves and let me know if it worked in the comments section.

Tread Carefully...

I strongly advise that you to chose your victims carefully. SMS bombing your ex-girlfriend probably isn't the greatest choice. While SMS bombing isn't necessarily illegal, a victim could claim harassment and take you to civil court. If she/he can prove a case of harassing behavior from you, you could be liable to pay damages and will also have the charge permanently on your criminal record. That person would seriously have to be terrible at life, but anything is possible.

You should also try to find out if your victim has unlimited text messaging. Most smartphone plans from major carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, or T-Mobile all come with unlimited text messaging, but there are some that do not. And for your victims without an unlimited text plan, the cost of your little prank could be absurd. The average cost per text is $0.20. So, if you bomb our victim with 100 texts in a row, you just cost them 20 smackers.

Needless to say that probably wouldn't be appreciated, and kind of kills the joy of a well thought out prank. And make sure you have unlimited texting as well. May seem like a no-brainer, but I'm just saying...

You can also avoid all of that by using SMSFlooder and sending mass emails instead. There isn't a charge for sending an email, so that will always be a plus.

So tread carefully my friends. The SMS bomb is a powerful weapon, and should only be used after much reconnaissance of the "enemy."