# Why is there no true smartphone faxing app? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 27, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370 "2017-04-27T15:21:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370/21 "2017-04-27T21:20:55Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > I know a guy who does not know how to type, at least not at an acceptable speed. No, he’s not really old. He finds it faster to write something (including figures, formulas, etc) down on a piece of paper, stick the pages in a fax machine, dial my number, and hit send. Not obsolete. Can’t he just take a picture of that and text it to you? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370/22 "2017-04-27T21:29:23Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > Can’t he just take a picture of that and text it to you? He could, but that would introduce an extra step and presumably take longer. I am just reporting what he does now; if fax machines disappeared off the face of the earth he would find a way to deal with it. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370/23 "2017-04-27T21:36:26Z")
The IRS requires any installment agreements that you want to set up over the phone to be faxed to them. Not scanned and emailed they must be faxed. This is an absolute hard requirement. It’s incredibly inconvenient but they have absolutely no intention of changing this. Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370/24 "2017-04-27T21:53:09Z")
> [@Reply](#): > > I take it you know about eFax, right? Both the app and the website let you take some random document and fax it to some random number. They have per-page and/or per-month prices. (Sorry if that’s obvious, just making sure we’re on the same page). Same page! HA! A fax joke! Your reply was very thorough and I thank you for it. Seems like the issue has been thought about and it’s a whole lot hairier than I anticipated. Ah well. What really got me thinking about this: a few months ago I switched cell phone carriers from AT&T to T-Mobile. I didn’t want to shell out for a new phone just yet, so I kept my old one. The problem was getting AT&T to unlock it. The “unlock team” is apparently a mysterious group kept far from the other employees; I tried to contact them through the web form, but they messed up my first request (denied due to “device is not on our network”, um, I know, because I changed carriers) and the second one (they sent an unlock code for an iPad, whaaaat?), and each one takes days for them to get back to you. Days during which I was without a working phone. Finally, I got a hold of an employee who grudgingly admitted that the only way he knew how to contact them was a fax number. I faxed a letter with the whole sorry story and got an email the next day with an unlock code. Anyway, it got me thinking about this, because I haven’t used a fax machine in a while, and it seemed to me that it was an obvious thing that had been somehow overlooked. I guess not. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370/25 "2017-04-27T21:53:24Z")
The fax machine supposedly knows from the other fax machine whether the transmission succeeded or failed, which may be important to the IRS. An email could disappear into the aether or a spam blackhole and you would not immediately know it. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370/26 "2017-04-27T21:57:30Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > I know a guy who does not know how to type, at least not at an acceptable speed. No, he’s not really old. He finds it faster to write something (including figures, formulas, etc) down on a piece of paper, stick the pages in a fax machine, dial my number, and hit send. Not obsolete. Of scan it and email it. There’s a _lot_ more flexibility it doing this way. It is obsolete. **Reply** : the OP talks about such _indirect_ methods. The question is about _direct_ methods. I know that way back when (in the era of frequent faxes), there was an issue with some combinations of fax modems and digital exchanges that screwed things up. The various sampling rates had to be in line or something. It’s not surprising that this is an issue for cell phones. All the D\<-\>A conversions can be easily messed up if it wasn’t built in from the start to handle faxes. And why would they? It’s dead, dead, dead. (But I still have to send one once every couple years via one of those free-to-send-a-few services.) ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370/27 "2017-04-27T22:16:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And if I then called up the number of a fax machine and played that recording of chirps and beeps, the fax machine would print out a page, wouldn’t it? No, not necessarily anyways If you sent a 100% correct analog transmission of the chirps and beeps etc, yea in theory, if you could mimick the hand shake so the machine would begin receive mode. But if you convert that audio to digital, it may very well not work. Even if it is analog, its very sensitive to noise and distortion etc The chirps and beeps are not the data, the data is the bulk of the noise you dont hear because the speaker shuts off after negotiation. It sounds like a bunch of hissing white noise in various modulations. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370/28 "2017-04-27T22:17:24Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > [QUOTE=Reply] > > Can’t he just take a picture of that and text it to you? He could, but that would introduce an extra step and presumably take longer. [/QUOTE] It’s not an extra step, it’s a different step, and cannot possibly take longer. Current method: Put paper in fax machine. Type in your phone number. Press SEND. Wait for the paper to run through the machine, and hope it doesn’t misfeed. Wait to make sure the machine makes a connection, your phone is not busy, etc. Repeat if necessary. Proposed method. Put paper on table and take a photo of it. Tap “Share” and tap your name (or similar step depending on the type of phone.) Tap “Send”. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2017, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370/29 "2017-04-27T22:23:01Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > I know a guy who does not know how to type, at least not at an acceptable speed. No, he’s not really old. He finds it faster to write something (including figures, formulas, etc) down on a piece of paper, stick the pages in a fax machine, dial my number, and hit send. Not obsolete. Use a touch screen, and literally write you an email PC will convert to ascii text, hit send on the email POOF, done. I assume all apple devices do this out of the box? Android devices can with google handwriting input. If they can learn to read my handwriting, they can read your friends [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-there-no-true-smartphone-faxing-app/785370.md?page=1)