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Level 1

15 points

Why is my iMessage being sent as a text message?

A couple of days ago I installed iOS 5 on my iPhone 4. Now, for my contacts who also own iPhones, iMessages seem to be activated. When I send a message, the bubble is blue, indicating an iMessage.

But then, a few minutes later, these messages are turning green, and underneath them is a line saying "sent as Text message".

Is this a bug? Why's this happening? At the moment, iMessage seems to be useless, at least for me. (I'm in Canada, working on a Bell contract. Does that factor in?)

Posted on Oct 19, 2011 7:14 AM

Best reply

anilsudhakaran

Level 4

1,637 points

Posted on Oct 19, 2011 7:26 AM

Turn off "send as SMS" in "settings >> messages"

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17 replies

May 15, 2013 7:58 PM in response to Trevor Cole

This reply is a little late, but I tried everything above and only found one solution.

Problem: I have SMS set to OFF so I don't get charged (don't have a texting plan), but when I send a message to someone who I know has an iphone, I was getting the green color (and an undeliverable message).

Solution: After some testing, I figured out that in every case, the green was occuring when sending to a contact that didn't have an area code added in front of the number in Address Book. Adding in the area code and trying again changes it to blue.

This explains why replying to a message from a sender worked (they have their area code already set in the messages preferences), while sending a new message to a contact in my Address Book didn't.

Nov 9, 2013 10:26 AM in response to Trevor Cole

If you go under Settings>>Messages. At the top, iis a slider to turn on iMessages. Try this. It will tell you to wait for Activation using your Apple ID for iMessage.
I have a 4S and this seemed to work.

Why is my iMessage being sent as a text message?