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iMessage not syncing between iPad and iPhone

Hey all,


So, I have a 3GS and an iPad 2, both on iOS 5.0. One of the advertised iMessage features is that you can start the conversation on one device, and finish on the other. However, messages I receive on my iPad don't show up on my iPhone, and vice versa.


I've heard that this has to do with the Caller ID defaulting to the device's phone number on the iPhone, but I'm not 100% sure if this is the case or not. I've also heard of other people having success of this syncing between iPhone and iPad, so I'm really not sure.


Just wondering if anyone has any insight as to why iMessage isn't syncing between my iPad and my iPhone that are both signed into the same Apple ID/iCloud account?


Thanks,
Behn

Posted on Oct 12, 2011 8:06 PM

Reply
83 replies

Nov 16, 2012 6:19 AM in response to BehnRocker

THIS DOES WORK. You just have to change some settings. Texts can only be delivered to your ipad via email since you do not have a phone connection. The 2 devices will have completely separate strings of texts until you change a setting on your iphone as well as the person's iphone that you are texting. Each person has to add their email address on their iphone in "Settings" -- "iMessage" -- "Send & Receive" -- "You Can Be Reached by iMessage At" -- so that the texts will go out both ways, by phone & email. Make sure that a checkmark is beside your phone number as well as any email address you want to use. A checkmark should be by your phone number under "Start New Conversations From" because it's best to send texts by phone vs. email since not everyone can receive emails on their phone. On your ipad, you should put a checkmark by all of the email addresses you want to use but you will have to designate just one email address under "Start New Conversations From". Remember, it will not work unless the person you are texting changes the setting on their phone, too.

Nov 16, 2012 6:24 AM in response to BehnRocker

THIS DOES WORK. You just have to change some settings. Texts can only be delivered to your ipad via email since you do not have a phone connection. The 2 devices will have completely separate strings of texts until you change a setting on your iphone as well as the person's iphone that you are texting. Each person has to add their email address on their iphone in "Settings" -- "iMessage" -- "Send and Receive" -- "You Can Be Reached by iMessage At" -- so that the texts will go out both ways, by phone and email. Make sure that a checkmark is beside your phone number as well as any email address you want to use. A checkmark should be by your phone number under "Start New Conversations From" because it's best to send texts by phone vs. email since not everyone can receive emails on their phone. On your ipad, you should put a checkmark by all of the email addresses you want to use but you will have to designate just one email address under "Start New Conversations From". Remember, it will not work unless the person you are texting changes the setting on their phone, too.

Dec 8, 2012 12:14 PM in response to ShadyMac

Good job... Thanks. All my devices are usingiOS 6.0.1. I had an IP4S and an iPad mini synced perfectly. But, I just got an ip5 two days ago and set it up with my unique Apple ID - the one that I use for everything other than the store.

Anyway, I couldn't get the new phone and iPad to sync.

I thought everything was the same, but I was only receiveng iMessages on the device that I last used to send the last message. (did I repeat myself?)

Your post had me searching for caller id, and to find it, I had to turn iMessage off and back on. When I did, messages shot across all my deives that I was now set up for iMessage -

I set up my new phone by restoring from my last back up, and although everything looked like it was set up, it wasn't. So everything is now syncing like it should be(including the old 4S without a sim, but on wifi.

Jan 12, 2013 5:17 AM in response to BehnRocker

I was faced with this exact problem and was all related to my phone number not appearing as a Caller-ID on all my devices.


I find the easiest way to get this working is to follow: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538 - and this is very simple.


You may have also noticed that Apple's iMessage advertising page has instructions on it which is a first for any product pages, proving the point that they were getting a lot of questions around how this worked: https://www.apple.com/ios/messages/ - look at the bottom.


This was probably a bug at some stage in iOS 5.X and even though I'm now on iOS 6 it carried over. I say this because my girlfriend recently got an iPhone 5 with iOS 6.0.2 installed and it worked right out of the box with this build.

iMessage not syncing between iPad and iPhone

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