I pay for unlimited texts with at&t, but with iMessage it’s no use. I have “send as sms” on for when I turn my data off, but I can only send messages, not receive. Why aren’t receiving texts automatically sent as sms? I can’t just disable iMessage because I always use it.
Think about what you are asking. The sender's phone has no way of knowing that you have Send as SMS enabled on your phone. So unless the sender's phone also has Send as SMS enabled, their outgoing messages will go as iMessage. It sounds like you should log out of iMessage and use SMS only if you don't want to have data enabled all the time, as you have unlimited texts. But with data off you won't get MMS messages either. So the actual solution is to leave data enabled for messages, and turn it off for other apps in Settings/Cellular.
I pay for unlimited texts with at&t, but with iMessage it’s no use.
Not exactly sure what you mean by that, since iMessage is an Apple Service, which is strictly for iOS devices, and SMS is for non-iOS devices, such as Android phones. The Send as SMS switch it strictly for iMessage when something is not working for iMessage, it has nothing to do with sending or receiving SMS. If you attempt to send an iMessage to an iOS device and iMessage, you, or the receiving have an issue with iMessage, it can be sent as an SMS.
As far as receiving SMS, that would be a question for you to ask your carrier. SMS/MMS is a carrier feature, and they control it. There is no setting for sending and receiving SMS on the iPhone. The only thing that can impact SMS/MMS is if you are attempting to send/receive an MMS, you must have Cellular Data turned on.
Contact your carrier and ask if your SMS/MMS plan is provisioned correctly on your account.
Send as SMS will only send the message as SMS if the iMessage cannot be sent, meaning that the sender's phone does not have a data connection. It does not mean that you can't currently receive it. If your phone has data off when an iMessage is sent to you it is held in Apple's iMessage server until it can connect to your phone. Turning off data on your phone does not "tell" Apple's server that your phone is not connected to iMessage. To do that you must turn off iMessage, not turn off data.
No, this isn’t true. I tried turning on “send as sms” on someone else’s iPhone. It still did not work.
I meant that with AT&T I pay for unlimited texts. When iMessage is used with iOS devices when not on WiFi, it doesn’t matter that I have unlimited texts because it will use data.
IMessage don't use much data, and the last time I checked the lowest AT&T plan is 3 GB, which is enough for over a million iMessages.
If my memory serves, all of AT&T's plans have unlimited text. But you are correct about iMessage using data, it always has. You are approaching the entire SMS/MMS/iMessage thing incorrectly. iMessage, while a messaging service, works like email, it is a data driven service, unlike SMS, which uses a portion of the cellular signal to send messages. iOS devices use iMessage, as long as you have it activated, and non-iOS devices use SMS/MMS. Of course, MMS, which is sending a non-iOS device a photo, or a group message requires cellular data as well, whether you have an unlimited plan or not.
As I told you earlier, and Lawrence has reinforced, is that the Send as SMS switch is only for iMessages, and only when the party is not connected to data. We also told you that your failure to receive SMS has nothing to do with any of those settings on the phone. You need to contact AT&T about that, since SMS is a carrier feature, and they have control over it.
I can’t recieve text messages
