Helping with texting on an iPad w/out an iPhone or wifi

[twowinns]

i just purchased an iPad Mini 2 for my 83 year old mother-in-law. All her friends have smart phones and love to text.

She has an old flip phone with w/out a qwerty keyboard, so it's harder for her to text. The iPad has an AT&T cellular connection, in addition to the wifi. Unfortunately, she doesn't have any wifi or Internet service, thus why I bought the cellular iPad.

I know the Messages app will allow texts to iPhones, but not all her friends have an iPhone. Is there a 3rd party app that will allow her to text to anyone, with just her iPad and it's cellular connection?

 

[rigormortis]

yes, but you would have to get it from the app store. something like
text free, text me!, text now, textplus, there is a lot of them

you would not be able to use iMessage to send or receive texts using the phone number that is on the sim card, you would need another ' virtual ' phone number

you can also get a google voice number and use google hangouts to text

three a lot of choices in the app store. shop around
some are free, some require in app purchases some you have to watch ads for credits, etc etc

 

[a7thton]

As others have stated, there are apps out there that allow free texting.

I've used Text Free from Pinger before. They give you an actual phone number to use. Anyone can text to you using that number and you can text back to any number. They have a free ad-supported tier and a paid, no-ad tier. When I used it I found it reliable and easy to use. They have an ios app, so ipad use should be ok.

This is likely your best bet.