As an alternative or complement to traditional paper Chinese New Year cards, many have been sending well-wishes on SMS on the morning of the actual day, and throughout the day as well. You know – those long wordy festive greetings in Chinese characters that advertise the sender’s fingertip dexterity in churning out those characters on a tiny handphone.
Look for this icon in the Apps store or its publisher's name "YYH Creative" in English.
This 春节短信 (兔年特别版）free app for Apple devices provides a long list of pre-canned Chinese New Year greetings and well-wishes that you can send as an SMS or email. There’s no english name, do a search for free Chinese New Year apps and look for the icon. The name of its publisher “YYH Creative” is in English though.
The well-wishes are organised into different categories based on recipients (mother, father, teachers, lover, boss) or theme (humour, sincere, classic). Many are customised for the Rabbit year since this will be the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese horoscope.
There is also a small section for the upcoming Valentine’s Day although I have never sent a pre-canned Valentine’s Day message before.
Apart from sending a selected greeting through SMS or email, it can also be copied onto the clipboard or stored in a shortlist folder. Sent greetings are archived for future reference.
Although this app might be convenient for those who find it too tiresome to type their own New Year well-wishes, I would suggest amending the pre-canned greetings to personalise them.
A little knowledge of Chinese is needed to use this app, since the menus and categories are all in Chinese.
A word of caution to those who know only a little Chinese but want to impress by sending a bombastic greeting in Chinese, get someone to toss a quick glance at the message. A casual browse under the category for greetings to teachers contained one addressing the recipient as a lover, although the rest of the message was indeed written with teachers as the recipient. A typo perhaps?
Overall, a useful app for those trying to minimise RSI on their fingers from pressing out those long Chinese New Year SMS in Chinese characters.