Abstract: A completely hands free exchange of messages, especially in portable devices, is provided through a combination of speech recognition, text-to-speech (TTS), and detection algorithms. An incoming message may be read aloud to a user and the user enabled to respond to the sender with a reply message through audio input upon determining whether the audio interaction mode is proper. Users may also be provided with options for responding in a different communication mode (e.g., a call) or perform other actions. Users may further be enabled to initiate a message exchange using natural language.