iMessages sync between iPhone and Mac... how is this going to work?

[sflomenb]

Once Lion comes out, Mac will gain iMessage support. One of the features in iOS 6 is the unifying of your phone number and Apple ID. I have an iPhone 4S and an iMac. I plan to use iMessage on my iMac once Lion comes out. But how will I be able to use it in conjunction with my iPhone if my phone number and Apple ID aren't unified, which I will have to wait for iOS 6 to do?

[mtreys]

Have to wait I suppose? I wondered that myself but figured I missed a part of the keynote where they explained...

[d21mike]

iMessage has been in Beta for some time now. It works like your iPad where you do not have an actual phone number. On your iPhone you can add your email address (apple id) and iMessage can be sent to either on your iPhone. For your iPad and Mac just use your email address and you will get the message to all all three. My understanding is unification would be that your email address and your phone number are linked so that you do not have to give out your email address to people they can just send to your phone number and that would also send to your email address devices. But I am just using a educated guess at this point.

[bgro]

I'm running ios6 on my iPad and iPhone. Once u upgrade to ios6 on your iPhone it assigns your phone number to your apple Id. When u instal ios6 on your iPad and go into your iMessages settings on the iPad, your phone number is now enabled to "receive to" and "set as caller id". This enables u to both receive messages sent to your phone number on your iPad as well as initiate iMessages from your phone number rather than your email (apple id).

Messages in Montain Lion should work the same exact way however it is not enabled in DP4. I can tell u though that syncing between iPhone and iPad works perfectly with the above setup.