How can you switch between text message and iMessage on a specific contact?

Noticed that if you are connected via IP behind a firewall with no connection to internet the imessage does not switch to sms.

Also sender on other side is not offered send via sms in such situation.

Seems like a but to me.

my contact was registered as imessage user as she was trying out with an iphone.

Now that she has switch her phone to a non iphone, my message continued to be sent as iMessage and indicated as delivered...it did not even give me an option to change to sms after 20secs....

Do let me know if you have found a solution..

it is quite silly that i have to be very conscious to turn the imessage settings on and off each time i message that contact.

You said iMessage only works between iOS 5 users, essentially only between those with iPhones. This is not true. My wife has an old telephone, without, of course, IOS5, with no Wifi, far from being a geek, has never see an iPhone, is unable to change her SIM card from a telephone to another, But is considered as an iMessage receiver for an unknown reason! When I send an iMessage to her, this message is considered as delivered, which is not the case. My iPhone does not resend automatically the message as a text message.

My conclusion : as a contact, without IOS5, may be considered as an iMessage receiver while he is not, I cannot be confident in iMessage which considers iMessages as delivered while they are not. I have definitely switched iMessage off.

What's frustrating is that I have an iPad and and iPod Touch, but no iPhone. I sometimes miss messages when I've been having an iMessage chat back and forth with someone's iPhone, and then (later) they try to text me by just continuing the existing conversation. I guess the different colors used for iMessage vs. SMS are a good clue... my iPhone-using friends will just have to get used to noticing that visual cue.

I've also noticed that if my iPhone has switched to sending text messages instead of iMessages then if I send an iMessage from my iPad it causes the iPhone to switch back to sending iMessages and copies the iMessage from the iPad to the message thread on the iPhone. It seems a very indirect way of achieving something that the iPhone should take care of. I was in the position where I was abroad, an iMessage delivery failed because I had lost connection, the iPhone switched to sending text messages which also failed as I only had national calls included in my plan and i was sending calls to an international number. So I was in a situation where I could not send a message from my iPhone at all. To test that the recipient was still connected I sent an iMessage using my iPad and noted the behaviour above.

I stumbled across the feature of the iPhone where u can set one contact to only send text even if the other iPhone user has I message enabled it Is done when u compose a message to that person you can push and hold on the send button for 5 seconds this will bring up a message asking to switch to text/SMS.

This only happens if the contact is contactable via iMessage and SMS.

Hope this helps.

david from Brisbane wrote:

I stumbled across the feature of the iPhone where u can set one contact to only send text even if the other iPhone user has I message enabled it Is done when u compose a message to that person you can push and hold on the send button for 5 seconds this will bring up a message asking to switch to text/SMS.

This only applies to the specific message. It does not set the contact to SMS permanently.

If you go the contact you are having issues with - you should see their cell phone number may also be listed as iPhone (I had a contact with two Mobile Phone and IPhone) I clicked on Edit and Deleted the iPhone one - now it works. She had an iPhone, but now does not! This was driving me nuts because I would never see it went as an iMessage until I wondered why there was no response. Hope this helps!

I have had the same issue trying to send a text message - to a person that no longer has an iphone. I deleted the contact completely and tried just the phone number and it still kept coming us as an iMessage. Something is definitely wrong with the iphone/service recognizing the number!

I figured out how to switch between Imessage and SMS

if the conversation you are in is currently under SMS and does not revert automatically you will have to get the email address of your recipiant. you will have to create a new conversation under the "To: " field you will have to enter their Apple ID Email adress and it will send it as an Imessage, This will create two Conversations, One for SMS and one for Imessage, this was the easiest i found to switch back and forth besides deleting them and adding them again.🙂

Hope this helps

IMessage is dependent upon on Internet connection --either cellular or WiFi.

To force SMS, turn of your data and Wifi connection.

To force Imessage turn it back on.

This other stuff mentioned here is just plain silly ... I've never done any of that stuff.

I had the same problem as the original poster. If you're having a conversation with someone through Imessage and the connection gets slow or stagnant you can hold down a your text message and it will give the option of sending as SMS. I have found if you do this more than once in row with the same contact Imessage will then send all following messages as SMS. For a lot of us with limits on texting this is infuriating!

So far, the only fix I have found is to do what someone above suggested...send an Imessage text from your Ipad or computer (I guess you have to have a Mac?) and then have that person reply. At that point it will reset the contact on your Iphone back to Imessage.

The suggestion somewhere above you can simply hold down the SEND button for 5 seconds to get the options does not work on my Iphone (Iphone 4 with iOS 6.1.3)

FIXED!! Thanks abhijit1001 - your post helped me figure out the fix to the opposite problem. My husband changed from iPhone to Samsung Galaxy S4 but my messages to him still kept going out as iMessages instead of SMS so he wasn't seeing them. After reading your post about Facetime I went to the top of the messages conversation, hit Facetime (which of course didn't work as he no longer has an iPhone) and hey presto my messages to him have now switched from iMessage to SMS. Easy peasy! So no need to delete your messages etc. - the iOS detects the recipient as having an iPhone or not via Facetime.

Hope this helps.

I had this same issue with my assistant (who switched from an iPhone to an android) and my husband just fixed it! The facetime thing didn't work for me.

Go to Settings, Messages, Then the toggle for "Send as SMS" should be clicked on. That way it sends as SMS when iMessage is unavailable.

Fixed!

Hi

If iMessage is on, the 'Send' button is Blue,

If nothing is typed, in the message box, the word 'iMessage' is shown..

Now to switch to text msg, all that we need to do is to press and hold the 'Send' button for 3 seconds..

Voila, the 'Send' button becomes Green and the message box has the words 'Text Message' instead of iMessage..

To switch back to iMessage, we just need to press and hold the Green 'Send' button for 3 seconds and it becomes Blue..

:)