Force iMessage to send an SMS?

Text messages will send as iMessages when you and the recipient are within a data zone (e.g. 3G, wifi). Otherwise, as long as "send as SMS" is selected in the menu (under messages), your text will send as a standard SMS text. SMS texts only require a standard cellular connection, not a data connection. If you were to disable the cellular data toggle in the menu system under network, you could still send a text as an SMS. It does not rely on a data connection; only standard cell connection. I am oversimplifying but it basically gets the point across.

This is why a message may initially be sent as a blue iMessage, but later on it corrects itself and turns green, to notifiy you of the fact that the receipient is not within a standard data-coverage zone.

We all know how it works.

The point is that iphone does not recognize that the recipient is not in a data zone, and it sending the message as iMessage and not as SMS as it should do.

And NO does not correct it even later. You must send is as SMS only manually.

It supposed that all this was automatically.

Yes you are absolutely correct. The auto switching does NOT work.

is there any way to be providers problem?

Its a bug...

Here is a way to prove it does not work….

I’m here with a mate. We are sending blue messages between us with no problem.

On the recipient phone, turn off wifi and General/Network/Cellular Data to simulate a no-data connection. SMS messages will still work.

Now on the sender phone, send another blue message. The message sends as an iMessage and is not delivered. It is not sent as a green SMS. You can send as many messages as you like.

Now turn cellular data or wifi back on and the messages arrive.

Hi all,

I have the same problem... exactly. so, still no anwser to this one?

Same here. I will try following with the iMessage recipient's iPhone - on this screen

http://www.maclife.com/article/howtos/how_keep_imessage_sending_sms

touch the "receive at" field and check that he/she has also the phone number address (not only email ones) selected. Maybe it's not and then iMessage is not able to determine, which contact number to use to send the sms...

This is a **** big bug. It used to work automatically. *** is going on Apple?

Is it possible that this problem happens when a person has multiple apple devices? For example, if you try to text someone whose iPhone does not have access to wifi or cellular data, but they have an iPad or iMac at home connected to wifi, then perhaps it gets sent as an iMessage to their iPad or iMac but imessage fails to realize that their phone never recieved it and hence does not also send the message as an SMS to the iPhone. I noticed this whilst a friend was travelling outside of the country. My phone wanted to send all messages to him as iMessages even though he and his phone had no cellular data connection and I think it was because his iPad was at home connected to his wifi - which is what made my phone think iMessage was appropriate. My solution was to turn off iMessage on my phone whenever I texted him so that all texts went as SMSs. Not very convenient. If someone has multiple apple devices, iMessage needs to recognize which devices have or have not recieved the iMessage and if the iphone has not, then it needs to be resent as an SMS. I think that this is the bug.

iMessage is so flawed, but Apple does not care because it is a way to lock you into using only their devices. A similar problem is when your iPhone is stolen and you need to use a non-iPhone as your replacement. Apple did not include anyway to turn off iMessaging for the stolen phone. And yes, I tried all of the different suggestions posted in other discussions...none of which worked. FIX THIS APPLE!!!!

For me this is definitely a multiple device issue. I completely agree with the other scenarios mentioned here as I get that too. But this is my problem:

I have an iPhone 4 on full contract with 1GB monthly data, 3G etc. My wife has an iPhone 3GS, an iPad 3 and iPod Touch. Her phone is on the cheapest Tesco pay-as-you-go with NO data allowance - just calls and texts.

She goes out with her iPhone and is therefore no longer connected to the Internet because she's no longer within WiFi range. I want to send her a txt message using the Messages app. But it defaults to sending as a blue iMessage and because both my iPhone and her iPad and iPod are at home on the WiFi the message is confirmed as recieved almost instantly so the option to "Send as Text Message" isn't available.

The only way I can see around this is too temporarily disabled iMessage: Settings > Messages > iMessage = Off.

But the I have to remember to turn it back on. An option to force txt when sending would be the answer.

Mmm... I wonder if I created a new Contact entry for my wife, such as "Wife - Mobile", which only had her telephone number and removed that number from her current Contact record if it would dissociate the mobile number from the Apple account for iMessage?

Darryl Ponting wrote:

Send it like normal (i.e. iMessage) then you can hold down on the balloon of the sent message and a menu will pop up with the option "Send as Text message".

Selecting this resends as a SMS and the balloon changed from blue to green.

This is the best solution. You can tell that the other person hasn't received the message because the 'delivered' and / or 'read' ledgends won't appear. If you suspect it's because they're out of range of data, but would receive an SMS, you can use this trick after a certain amount of time.

It's a great tip and I used it just now for the first time.

After you've exchanged a few SMS messages with the person, the conversation defaults back to SMS once again.

I had a similiar issue with texting to my wife when she had her cellular data turned off and did not have a WiFi connection. What I discovered was that her iPad was on at home with iMessage turned on, so it was received the iMessages. Because the iMessage was sent (although to the iPad) this precluded the choice of holding down the blue text bubble to try and resend as SMS. In order to text her by SMS I had to turn off iMessage in the settings.

wow.... this suks big time.... didn't realize it was such a 'known' and 'established' problem? This causes a huge amount of grief between me and my ex... she isn't always on a Wi-Fi or got 'data' on.... so, sometimes she gets my messages... but sometimes.... I have to wait for hours.... this is total rubbish... what is INCREDIBLY annoying is that I can't do anything about it... I mean, if I could 'force' Messages to send as a normal sms text??..... what a jip APPLE!!! More and more like a Windows machine everyday.... very disappointing....

Read my post (three posts up). If an iMessage isn't delivered, you can force it

to send as an SMS.