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How can I choose between using iMessage or SMS when I want to send a message?

If I have already sent to someone an iMessage, I can't send to the same person an SMS.

What can I do to choose between iMessage or SMS?

iPhone 4, iOS 5

Posted on Oct 15, 2011 12:15 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 15, 2011 11:00 PM

I found a solutin


If I type the contact's full name and I tap return, the message will be SMS 🙂


That really happens. who can imagine?



Apple must improve it and make it more flexible to switch between iMessage and SMS

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Oct 15, 2011 11:00 PM in response to Actuality

I found a solutin


If I type the contact's full name and I tap return, the message will be SMS 🙂


That really happens. who can imagine?



Apple must improve it and make it more flexible to switch between iMessage and SMS

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Oct 25, 2011 3:24 AM in response to sirBeco

It ***** that you can't choose between an imessage and a normal sms. Apple needs to sort this. A freind who did have an iphone, who now has a Samsung galaxy, cannot receive sms from me as he still has the same number.

Everytime i try to send him a txt it appears as a blue imessage and he doesn't receive the txt??

He still has his iphone at home which he uses as ipod etc but has his sim card in his Samsung...?

We are not sure whats going on here but WHY can't i just choose to send an imessage or a standard txt without going to settings and disabling it?

Dumb Apple.

Please fix.

Cheers

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Oct 15, 2011 12:42 PM in response to sirBeco

Right now, the only way to force sending by SMS is to enter Settings > Messages and turn iMessage off.


iMessage automatically reverts to SMS delivery when there's no data, the message is not quickly delivered or iMessage is unavailable as a service if you enabled Send As SMS

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Dec 12, 2011 11:54 AM in response to sirBeco

Yea, that's not going to cut it Apple. Like Dash68 up there I had an iPhone, and my wife still does. She has turned off iMessage because of this idiocy. She could not send me a text without jumping through hoops because I have an iPhone and an iPad with no SIM. We even tried turning those off completely and it still defaulted to iMessage. She couldn't even reply to a text I send her without it going to iMessage. SMS needs to be the default, with the option to do iMessage if both capabilities exist, not the other way around. I expect everyone with a friend that has an iAnything is affected by this. Surely people in Cupertino have friends that don't have iPhones and have experienced this themselves....maybe not.

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Dec 12, 2011 12:37 PM in response to sven from colorado

Besides tapping on the bubble, the other thing you can do is remove your phone number from the list of addresses that receives iMessages. If you do that, it will always send message via SMS (assuming you send it to the phone number and not the e-mail address).

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Oct 15, 2011 12:32 PM in response to sirBeco

I don't think you can. If the person you are messaging has iOS 5 it will automatically use iMessage which is free (no carrier charge although it does go against your data quota if you have one). If the recipient is not on iOS 5 or not ani iOS device regular SMS will be used. With iMessage you can send photos like mms plus get things like notification when the other person has read your MSG


Although I don't know what happens if you turn iMessage off in


Settings/Message


Perhaps then everything goes as SMS.


But iMessage between iOS 5 devices doesn't incurr carrier charges if you have a limited messaging plan

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Dec 12, 2011 3:45 PM in response to J D McIninch

I assume you mean I can set my iPhone to not recieve texts sent to my phone number on my iPhone by removing that from the 'You can be reached for messages at' block in the messages setting section. Won't let me, it's grayed out. Has the phone number on it that this phone had a year ago and won't let me remove it. Suggestion makes sense, it just won't let me. SIM is inactive, but still in the phone. Wonder if I remove the SIM. Nope, SIM's out, number is still there and grayed out. Guess I can turn iMessage off on my iPhone. I notice my iPad doesn't seem to be a problem as that is just associated with email address(es). Would be great if I could get the number out of my iPhone, currently masquerading as a Touch.


Wait a minute. Turned iMessage off, and back on. Can be reached at just says two email addresses. The phone number block is trying to verify. Maybe it won't/can't with the SIM out. Have to wait till the wife gets home to see what happens now if she turns iMessage back on. Will it try to send to the phone number via iMessage and fail? making her do the tap and hold and force MMS, or will it just do MMS on its own. Stay tuned.

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Dec 13, 2011 7:19 PM in response to sven from colorado

Well that does seem to work. I am in a perpetual ' verifying number' on my iPhone, which likely won't ever happen. I can however text my wife from my cell phone and it shows up coming from me on her iPhone. She can reply to that and it goes to my regular cell. I can iMessage her from my iPhone (Sans SIM), and it shows up on her iPhone as coming from me, but with a new thread. Replying to that, goes back to my iPhone, presumably via iMessage, and my iPad. Tuff to tell which me is SMS and which is iMessage on her phone, so we deleted the iMessage thread.


I did stick the canceled SIM back in my iPhone and it still seems to be unable to verify the phone number. That's fine. Will be turning off iMessage on that phone anyway, just for good measure. I'm unlikely to be using that device for messaging anyway. If I want to use iMessage I'll grab the iPad. It has no SMS capability in the first place.


BTW, still don't get the opportunity to just remove the phone number from the iMessage assortment of valid addresses. It is grayed out.

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May 7, 2012 7:23 AM in response to Minase

I have the reverse problem. I want to send an iMessage but seem only to be able to send an SMS. Am I missing something? I have iMessage turned on in my settings, but when I try to send a message I don't get the blue iMessage, nor does the word "iMessage" appear in the message box. I know that the person I'm messaging has an iPhone. Where am I going wrong?

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May 7, 2012 12:45 PM in response to Joy R

Joy R wrote:


Surely that can't be right. How am I to know the other person's Apple id? I thought that was a kind of password. It's different knowing their e-mail address.

No, it's not the Apple ID. It's the email address. Sending message to and iPhone, then use the phone number. Sending messages to another type of device (e.g., iPad, iMac, iPod Touch), use the email address.

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May 7, 2012 1:01 PM in response to Tgara

I have tried to send iMessages to people who I know have iPhones and have iMessage activated, but my own messages only go out as SMSs. This doesn't matter locally, but my daughter lives abroad and iMessages would be free. It's really bugging me.

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How can I choose between using iMessage or SMS when I want to send a message?

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