So, a large number of my friends have both a cell phone and an iPod Touch, such as I had before the aquisition of my new iPhone 4s. And they all have a phone number and an email in their contact card on my phone. But, every time I send them a message, iMessages automatically chooses to send them a text. Is there a way to tell it to send them an iMessage, such as when I know they're home on their wi-fi network?
iMessage only works with iOS 5, so they will need to upgrade before you can send messages using iMessages. If they don't upgrade the messages will be sent the old way as a normal text.
Also, iMessage isn't a wifi only thing for iPhones. Not sure about iPod Touch.
It is supposed to do this automatically. Works for me, but then I don't have text messaging on my service...
Yes, in order to use iMessage, you must have IOS5 on both devices, and be on wi-fi, else it will send normal SMS text message.
A) Everyone has iOS 5.
B) They are on wi-fi, because they have iPods not iPhones.
C) I will reiterate the original question: I have the capability to talk to people via the free iMessages or the not-as-free text messages. I would like the option to choose which one, based on when/where/on which device, I'd like them to recieve it. Is there a way, when creating a new message, and selecting a contact, to tell it to use iMessaging over the default text message?
I don't know of any way you can choose which one. Everything I have read indicates that the device chooses it.
But, you can turn either one of them off in Settings>Messages. But that seems like it would be a pain but it may work for your purposes. However, if you have them both on the device will choose which one to use.
The device will send as iMessage (to a registered Apple ID or email address) unless it is not available to the recipient. If iMessage is not available, it'll send as SMS (to a phone number only).
You do get the choice, anyway. When you are in messaging, and start to type your contact's name, the option comes up to select email or phone number for that person.
I did not see that, a lot of people in my contacts list have similar-'ish' names like "Cate" and "Catherine" and so when it organized all the results of typing in "ca" with their phone numbers listed first, and emails listed second, it appeared that I didn't get a choice until either I scrolled all the way down, or typed in a lot more of their name so that the iPhone knew I was talking about a specific contact. Thank you for letting me know I just missed something.
My older son has a non-Apple phone with SMS/MMS. He also has an iPod Touch currently running iOS 5. iMessage is configured with his Apple ID and he's able to communicate with his brother's iPod Touch and with our (wife's and my) iPhone 4Ss.
His contact card on my phone has a "mobile" number and an Apple ID email address labeled as "iCloud".
What I have experienced is this:
Maybe I need to try removing his contact altogether and re-adding it, and wiping out any existing message threads. Any other suggestions?
iMessage vs. SMS
