Switching to SMS for a single message

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Level 1

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Switching to SMS for a single message

Is there a way to just send an SMS, instead of an iMessage for a particular text? My friend uses iMessage on his Mac for most of our conversations, but has an android phone so every time he is away from his computer I have to disable iMessgae on my phone for a moment so I can respond to him. Every time he uses his computer, my phone defaults his contact back to iMessage. I'm not even sort of quick enough to press and hold the bubble and choose to send as SMS before the message is delivered because it's SUPER fast. Is there any way to just choose how to send each message? I've read that you can hold down the send button for 5 seconds and it will ask you how you want to send it, but that doesn't work on my 5.

iPhone 5, iOS 7.1.2

Posted on Aug 20, 2014 4:49 PM

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Answer 1

razmee209

Level 10

191,382 points

Aug 20, 2014 4:57 PM in response to AMcCracken3

His Mac should be using his apple id for imessage and not his phone number. iOS: Using Messages

What happens when you send a text to his phone number and not his email address?

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Answer 2

AMcCracken3 Author

Level 1

0 points

Aug 20, 2014 5:11 PM in response to razmee209

I don't even have his email. I even deleted his contact from my phone now it just pops up as his phone number and I erase the messages after every few and just start a new text and type in his number but it still switches to iMessage after the number is completely typed in.

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Answer 3

Drew Reece

Level 6

10,660 points

Aug 20, 2014 5:24 PM in response to AMcCracken3

A kludgy way to work around it is to 'disable the internet'.

It may be simple if you only rely on wifi most of the time. Disable wifi from the control centre & then reply (iMessage uses the internet).

I wonder if a second way is to create two contacts, one for iMessage (which has the iCloud email etc) and one for SMS (with just the phone number) . I haven't tested this so messages may decide to use the phone number that is associated with the iCloud account. See if that works - it will cause you to have split conversations in the messages list.

Hopefully someone has a better idea. I also couldn't 'press & hold' to send as SMS on iOS 7, so that may just be "internet lore".

EDIT:

Apologies this may not help based on what you just posted about only using the phone number

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