Apple Thoughts: How To Show SMS Character Count on iOS 4

"Text messages are a wonderful things. They let you have conversations in a wide range of situations, such as when you have to let your best friend know about the skanky behavior of a new neighbor with the window open. Of course, texts can also be a problem when they are long. Texts over the limit can get rejected or broken up in the wrong place. By default, the software will not tell you how many characters you have typed, but we can change that with these simple steps."

I honestly never thought to look in the settings for this, but it was something that always bothered me. Luckily, I came across these instructions from Appletell. Basically, under Message settings, switch character count to on. It's that simple. If you need step by step directions, click through to the Appletell article. Just a heads up: The count doesn't show up until the SMS message is long enough to be two lines of text or more.