In the book, I argue about the differences between text messaging and email. One of the big differences is that its very easy to forward an email. A text message? Possible, but not as easy.

It is possible in the Android OS to forward a text message. The problem is that you can forward only one chunk of a conversation at a time. Here's how it works:

Long-press the portion of the message you want to forward.

Each message chunk is kept in a cartoon bubble. You long-press a cartoon bubble to forward the text in that bubble. (Only the text is forwarded, not the date/time stamp.)

From the pop-up menu, choose the command Forward Message.

A new message window appears. The message that you're forwarding appears at the bottom of the window, prefixed with the text Fwd:. You can edit the message text if you want to: Simply touch your finger in that part of the window and edit away.

Fill in the To field with a contact name or phone number to forward the message.

Touch the Send button to send the message.

Yes, if you want to forward an entire conversation you'll have to long-press and copy each individual text chunk. I suppose Google could add a feature to forward an entire message, but the problem is the 160-character limit; remember that text messages are limited to only 160 character chunks at a time.

Again: My argument is that often you have to decide whether to send an email or a text message.

It's possible to copy text message chunks and paste them elsewhere: After long-pressing a cartoon bubble in the Text Messaging app, choose the command Copy Message Text. You can then paste the text in an email message, or into any app that accepts text input. That may not be the easiest way to copy a text message, but it works.