2 months in a row I’ve gone over my data allowance because of iMessage and iMessage picture texts. Is there a way to turn off iMessage without totally screwing everything up? I have been turning it on and off and then miss all kinds of messages and don’t ever get the pictures. Very frustrating!!! Please help!
Make sure you're on Wi-Fi when using iMessage.
You didn't do enough research.
Sending as SMS is normally controlled by the person you are sending the message to. I haven't checked to see if you can direct iMessage to not use cellular data as you can other apps, have you? The problem is if it does convert it to an SMS your children's iPods would not be able to receive the message as the iPod Touch is not capable of sending/receiving SMS text messages.
Unless you are adding a massive amount of pictures to your messages, or you have a really low data allowance, messages should not be taking you over your data allowance. You could turn off MMS.
You can turn off MMS as I stated and that will stop you from sending/receiving pictures and drop the usage a bit.
Thanks. I guess I’ll do that. It just seems silly that I have unlimited texts and MMS, but the way Apple sets things up, I can’t use it effectively. I got the data as an emergency measure if I ever needed it, but everything month it’s used up on something that should be free (texting).
Thanks for your help. I wish I could solve the problem, but I guess I can’t. :(
Yes, I’ve been turning iMessage on and off when not on wifi, but then I miss lots of messages that aren’t sent as texts, only as iMessage. Several friends have sent me multiple messages that I never receive. It’s jjust frustrating....
The only reason I got the iPhone was so I could message my children who only have iPods, so I need the iMessage feature for them. I just didn’t realize it would eat up all my data every month and would love to find a way that it would default to sending as a text when not on wifi.
Wishful thinking...
I have 50mb, so not much, but just about everyone in my contacts have iPhones, so all the messages use data...
iMessage is a proprietary Apple messaging system and is totaling different from SMS texting which is operated from your cell provider. Smartphones by design use cell data and it is pretty much overkill to buy one with that limitation on data.
Your best bet would be to deregister your iMessage account and remove it. That way anyone sending you anything will go as a SMS or MMS text which you have unlimited through your cell provider and that would solve your issue.
How to stop going over data using iMessage
