how does iMessage work?

I have the same question and have the same issue. Not all imessages come to my phone and iPad 2. it seems to be one or the other most of the time. Almost always my phone but not the iPad. Thought I would get the message on all devices. Senders are imessage users with iPhones running IOS 5 and iMessage enabled.

Hey everyone, it's so simple to disable it on enable it, just go the the Setting, then Messages, after that switch off the iMessage which is the first one.

Hi, my imessage works on both wifi and 3g, it would look for a wifi if not available would go to 3g, which would cost me more. How do i set it up to go from wifi to sms straight. I turned imessage off for now coz it cost me more when i use it and would go to 3g

Hi,

Sorry to be thick. Is it free even if you send to someone abroad?

Thanks 🙂

I was puzzled too:

Today I sent a "message" to a friend who has iOS5, thinking it would be sent as an iMessage (the icon was blue), however, I sent the message and it told me it was delivered as iMessage, but after ten minutes i noticed it turned green and it was sent as SMS.

I assume my friend didn't have any connection for those 10 minutes, so my phone, after not receiving any confirmation, resent my message as SMS.

I'd like my phone to work as Whatsapp: if my friend is not connected, screw him, i'm not gonna waste any cents, and he/she will receive my text only when online again.

Is there an option to do so? what about the sms switch? what does it exactly do?

Thanks

If iMessage is the means of transferring the message, it doesn't matter if the recipient is abroad. Just as sending an email to someone abroad is the same as to someone domestic (in the same country).

That said, iMessage represents data usage. So, if you send or receive iMessages while on a connection that meters bits transferred, iMessage will count against this. That's common for 3G (cellular) connections. Even so, the bitcount of a text iMessage is probably quite small (a few hunder bytes to a few kilobytes each?), so the charge may be small as well. If you start sending pictures, the data usage will be related to how large the picture file is - could get big.

If you're somewhere that you can browse for free or a flat rate (wi-fi), iMessage won't cost you anything extra.

Can someone please help me sought out this. How do you send messages iPad to iPad? I don't mean through phone or email address, which are the options that come up when I compose the message to send to the other iPad.

melaniefromsydney, this is a different topic from what's being discussed here. Try this one instead.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3376807?start=0&tstart=0

frederickfromaukland, you can disable the message from going out as SMS..

Settings -> Messages -> Send As SMS -> OFF

Sorry to be dense, but I have the apple ID I created for iTunes and that's what I'd like to use, but when I log in and then go to the next screen it tells me I can't use that e-mail address. SweetNu suggested created an additional account. Is that the only way? Also, this is off topic, but where do I check any e-mails that go to my apple ID? The one with the @mac.com suffix.... Thanks in advance.

My girlfriend and I both just got the iPhone 4S a couple weeks ago. I have some experience with iOS before the iPhone, having an iPod Touch 3rd Gen when it was the new thing. One thing that I did notice, and probably helps the iPhone determine to send the message as iMessage or SMS is that in your iPhone contacts app, there is a phone number type selection that says "iPhone". If your sending a message through Messages, and your contacts number is not listed as an iPhone, even if they have an iPhone with iMessage, it may send it as a SMS instead.

If I have a international data plan and turn it on overseas it enables my iMessage, everything works just as normal. But my question is, does the IMessage only use my data and not my text service in anyway?..

iMessage will use your data plan to send messages to other iOS 5 users while connected to a data network (either mobile or WiFI). If a data network is not available, then it will attempt to send the message as a SMS (or text message). You can disable this in your settings by going to Settings - Messages, then turn off "Send as SMS". This will keep it from sending as SMS when data services are not available Keep in mind though, that iMessage only works between iOS 5 users.