Can't send SMS anymore on iOS 10

This worked for me, with a slight twist: I had to enable SMS forwarding for my iPad on my iPhone, which makes no sense whatsoever; I have a separate MEID for the iPad, a separate SIM card and a separate data line (and number) from the carrier.

Yes, it uses the same iCloud ID and Apple iTunes account, but why should I have to have my iPhone effectively grant it permissions to send an SMS message? This is very poor user experience, Apple.

An iPad is not capable of connecting to any cellular service providers voice network. SMS and MMS texts require a cellular telephone voice connection. Since an iPad cannot make that connection at all, it can only send or receive SMS/MMS texts by being paired with an iPhone. It is the iPhone that actually does the sending and receiving, not the iPad.

The telephone number with an iPad cellular account is for carrier billing purposes only. No iPad can actually connect as a cellular telephone to a cellular voice network.

No reason to apologize. SMS/MMS texting are very old technologies nowadays. The genesis of SMS predates the Internet by a decade or so. A lot of people are now so used to internet message services like iMessage, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts, that they don’t realize that the ancient method (by tech standards) of SMS texting is a cellular telephone voice service, not a data service.

iPhone just started to deny sending text to non iPhone users....need a fix

Hi Michael,

Thank you for the explanation and I apologize for my complaints. I will let my ignorance stand for itself.

John

where is text message forwarding i can't seem to find it on my iphone ... i updated it the other day. things were working fine .. i receive text messages on macbook, now not.. i want to fix this issue.. help?

I Had this issue. My new iPad Pro was not sending SMS. Called my carrier and they tried to tell me the iPads couldn't send SMS lol. Then they tried to say it was a Pro thing after I stated I had always been able to. Anyway, found it on google. On my iPHONE, had to go to settings, then messages, then text message forwarding, and switch it on to forward to my iPad.

Check your continuity settings - Use Continuity to connect your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac - Apple Support

Yes I have also this problem. Now in IOS 10 I have to switch off iMessage in the settings, if I want to force sending an SMS. The problem is, that iMessage often does not arrive in time. I live on the border of Switzerland, France, Germany and have to send explicitly an SMS knowing that the communication partner is in this very moment in France or Germany (the same living on the border of Switzerland and Italy or Switzerland and France etc.). Before IOS 10 the choice for sending by iMessage or SMS was on the sending button.

Please Apple reenable this option that was very useful!!

that did it for me. was sending text to someone in Spain with no wifi. nothing was getting to them. I turned off imessage in settings, the message bubbles went from blue to green and they could receive them. Bad move Apple, a step backwards in text messaging.

Same here... iMessage works fine for iPhone users but will not send to non iPhone users via SMS on iPad Pro any longer..I am not sure if it is an issue I am having with others that needs a fix or are SMS messages no longer supported?

Hi teezer. Have you checked if continuity is still enabled on your iPhone, as described earlier in this thread? The update to the phone may have turned it off.

Hey everyone, very important . I was able to fix this issue by going to settings>messages>text message forwarding>and toggle on the device , in this case the ipad pro which was a recognized device to take messages via sms....worked like a charm!

good luck! I love these forums ! They actually work!

The iOS 10 update reset some of the settings I think. It worked for me to go to Settings - Cellular - Cellular Data Options - Enable LTE and toggle to either "Off" or "Data Only". Non-Apple texting doesn't seem to work if "Voice & Data" is selected.

Works like a charm, thanks!