iMessage is a huge deal

[AppleFanatic10]

I love iMessage. Only thing is a handful of my family/friends have iMessage, the rest of them have androids/blackberries. I can never do group chats. They look so fun lol.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

[bbmiLo]

Originally Posted by Beeplance

In my country, whatsapp is more popular than any other messaging service, including imessage.

Just a trend, I suppose.

whatsapp is dead.

Wechat (weixin) has 300 million users. its basically whatsapp + twitter + instagram. it owns every other messaging program.

[2IS]

Originally Posted by Kilamite

You'll find the average user does install WhatsApp. Take a look at where it is in the App Store rankings.

I'm pretty positive the average user does not, unless every single person I know isn't average...

[DoFoT9]

Originally Posted by Beeplance

In my country, whatsapp is more popular than any other messaging service, including imessage.

Just a trend, I suppose.

Yes, Asia and a lot of Europe basically doesn't care for iMessage - it's probably mainly the states & Australia/etc that use it more often (I had that very experience when I moved to Hong Kong).

Originally Posted by 2IS

I'm pretty positive the average user does not, unless every single person I know isn't average...

Where do you come from, exactly? I daresay you're in a very stock standard part of the world.

Originally Posted by bbmiLo

whatsapp is dead.

Wechat (weixin) has 300 million users. its basically whatsapp + twitter + instagram. it owns every other messaging program.

I use all 3 (and about 5 others actually, I'm socially active) - wechat is MASSIVE here in Asia. Whatsapp is ALSO massive. I find that wechat is more cumbersome.

[2IS]

Originally Posted by DoFoT9

Where do you come from, exactly? I daresay you're in a very stock standard part of the world.

Southern California. I used Whats App for a while and I know people who have at some point used it, but we all eventually came to realize it's redundant and unnecessary. Is it a popular app? Sure. Does the average person use it? No. The average person uses the native messaging app.

[C DM]

Originally Posted by bbmiLo

whatsapp is dead.

Wechat (weixin) has 300 million users. its basically whatsapp + twitter + instagram. it owns every other messaging program.

And then there's LINE. It's different in different regions throughout the world.

That said, ultimately, what really matters is what most of those you stay in touch with use, and what works for you, whatever it might actually be, no matter what's popular or cool or new or whatnot.

[DoFoT9]

Originally Posted by 2IS

Southern California. I used Whats App for a while and I know people who have at some point used it, but we all eventually came to realize it's redundant and unnecessary. Is it a popular app? Sure. Does the average person use it? No. The average person uses the native messaging app.

There we go, stock part of the world. In the US iMessage does seem very big - but outside... completely different story. Of the hundreds of people I have texted in the past few weeks, only 1 uses iMessage (excluding friends I know from Australia).

[moosquared]

Over here in Indonesia, the huge deal is still BBM. iMessage not so much, mainly because the device itself is expensive and even if they do own an iPhone (most likely the younger crowds), they'd be using whatsapp more because it's also available on BB & android and LINE because of the stickers.

I myself, use LINE more often. And of course I also own a mandatory BB.

[Ste Nova]

BBM is dead in my circle of friends, the current hot app is zello

[chrisrosemusic1]

Strongly agree with this - we continuously have group chats going on for organising some gaming time, or just for banter and piss taking. Sharing pictures etc is awesome and instant, and at no expense.

I have tried Android a few times (mixed with whatsapp) and it just isn't the same experience.

[panda bear]

I love iMessage and couldn't imagine having a phone that doesn't use it.

But now it hardly works about 75% of the time for me. Pictures take longer to send in iMessage than in regular texts a lot of the time and quite often, they end up sending as regular texts anyway.

If I turn off wifi, sometimes the pictures will send more quickly. Sometimes they won't.

[Drag'nGT]

Originally Posted by pdxmatts

I have a T-Mobile account and ATT. I have always been able to MMS over Wifi with different phones platforms. So is it an ATT thing?

I think there's a breakdown here. Yes, you always have to have a texting plan on your account to text non iPhones. That's always been a thing. Thanks to apps and the data options on smart phones you can use data to text people. It eats from their text plan but only pulls from your data. But then you have to tell people two different phone numbers and explaining why. MMS uses data. It used to be a separate type of texting and then it was rolled into the texting plan and then it was changed to being a data thing on smart phones under some if not most carriers. When you send a picture message to someone that isn't an iOS user you're not using iMessage. So being on wifi doesn't matter.

[Zaft]

It depends on the person. For me imessage is important becuase 95% of the people i interact with have iphones. I had around 100 traditional texts only last month.

[Jack Dangers]

iMessage really came in handy for me last week during my business trip to Europe. Between wifi being readily available everywhere and data consumption of iMessages being very low, I was able to communicate to my wife and other iOS users easily and cheaply and did not even come close to going over my international data roaming plan.. Text messages cost about .75 cent each while roaming.

[Fresh Pie]

Originally Posted by bohbot16

iMessage is indeed brilliant in the fact that you don't have to be aware of it to use it. This has the effect of making iMessage much more useful for each existing iPhone owner as more are added.

It's a network phenomenon named Metcalfe's Law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law

What a sincerely cool post. I read it early this morning and found myself trying to think of an equation to express Metcalfe's Law throughout the day. When I finally realized it was (X/2)*(X-1), I decided to come back and give your comment some praise as payment for the thoughts it provoked. </nerdiness>

[bohbot16]

Originally Posted by Fresh Pie

What a sincerely cool post. I read it early this morning and found myself trying to think of an equation to express Metcalfe's Law throughout the day. When I finally realized it was (X/2)*(X-1), I decided to come back and give your comment some praise as payment for the thoughts it provoked. </nerdiness>

That's pretty cool that you spent the time to derive it while thinking it over. Metcalfe was the commencement speaker at one of my graduations, so I've thought about it a lot as various social networks have gained traction.

[BenTrovato]

Originally Posted by Hephaestus

iMessage is great when it works but it still needs a lot of improving. It works well on the phone but on the Mac it is far from perfect. A lot of the time it lags for me, fails to update the conversation. Messages need to be sent twice when sending after a long break.

Does anyone else have these problems? For me these occur every single time without failure.

Same for me when switching between iPhone ipad and osx. I find it works best when I only use iMessage on one device.

[bohbot16]

iMessage works just fine for me between my iPhone and iPad.

[wenglish]

Can someone explain what would happen (with respect to texting) if a US-based (AT&T) iPhone was used in the UK with a UK SIM in it?

Would other iPhone users in the US continue to see the traveler's name or US phone number when receiving texts from the traveler, and would they be guaranteed their replies would go over iMessage and not via international SMS?

Would other iPhone users in the UK see the traveler's name and/or UK phone number when receiving texts from the traveler?

Is there any special setup needed to make this work without massive international texting bills at each end?

Thanks ... Mike (trying to plan daughter's study abroad, and right now we're a 'blended' family - she has iOS, we have Android).

[Abazigal]

I love imessage because it basically allows me to message anyone from any of my apple devices (I have iphone, ipad, macbook air, imac). For instance, I can have a friend message me on my phone, and I can reply from my PC (faster to compose a lengthier reply), or if I am in another room, I don't have to go and reach for my phone, but instead just reply from my ipad.

Also great for quickly transferring larger files (gmail allows only ~20+mb attachments, imessage allows up to 100mb).

Whatapp is actually a bit irritating, because I have to switch between it and my normal message app (I still have a few friends on phones which do not support whatsapp, or simply haven't gotten round to downloading it), and I can't do it from my ipad or macs.

Is there a reason why whatsapp isn't yet available on tablets and PCs?

[matttye]

Yeah it's great... when it works.

Messages are delayed constantly for me. Really annoying.

[Ste Nova]

Originally Posted by wenglish

Would other iPhone users in the US continue to see the traveler's name or US phone number when receiving texts from the traveler, and would they be guaranteed their replies would go over iMessage and not via international SMS?

create a contact with just an email address, send to that and it can never sms it

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Originally Posted by Abazigal

Is there a reason why whatsapp isn't yet available on tablets and PCs?

whatsapp attaches to the phone number, pc's don't have phone numbers

[matttye]

Originally Posted by Ste Nova

whatsapp attaches to the phone number, pc's don't have phone numbers

If you logged in on a PC/tablet it could send a verification text asking you to click a link if you want to use whatsapp on that device.

[Smartass]

i actually turned off iMessages. Lots of messages, that said they were recieved, never were. Didnt get any messages and then suddenly 10 of them poped up at the same time - the same was with other people. Some messages didnt even go through for no apparent reason and had to send them via normal txt... lots of other people i know also has them turned off so i dont know about you but for me it's been a totally unreliable service.

[matttye]

Originally Posted by Smartass

i actually turned off iMessages. Lots of messages, that said they were recieved, never were. Didnt get any messages and then suddenly 10 of them poped up at the same time - the same was with other people. Some messages didnt even go through for no apparent reason and had to send them via normal txt... lots of other people i know also has them turned off so i dont know about you but for me it's been a totally unreliable service.

Does that for me on a daily basis

iMessage is the main reason I bought an iPhone and I love it when it works!