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It's really important to me. Most of my friends are using it now, and I prefer iMessage over any other platform such as Whatsapp and Viber. iMessage is really fast compared with Whatsapp, on Whatsapp most of the time you need to wait for it to connect to the Whatsapp sever and it uses a lot more battery than iMessage.

I'd like to see an integration between iMessage and iCloud though. I hate it when my conversation is not "exactly" the same as my iPad and Mac.

However, the MOST annoying thing between the phone number and email address. I choose my ID as my email, but sometimes people will iMessage me my number. In this case, I will only get it on my iPhone but NOT my other devices (Mac and iPad).
 
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Hmm honestly I'm not sure.

I do use it a lot, but I could just as easily rely solely on Whatsapp which I use for group messages with friends.

Also, with my current plan although I have unlimited texts, picture messages for some reason are a bit of a grey area. In our group conversations we constantly send random images to each other, having iMessage/Whatsapp (and a massive data allowance) comes in handy.
 
I don't use it. I've got so many other non proprietary options.

Apple is really starting to irritate me with their aggressive barbaric tactics to supress competition and create a monopoly. It's especially maddening since I'm a huge Apple enthusiast, shareholder, and long time loyal customer.

Apple has such great products, terrific styling, excellent OS and massive success, the last thing they need is to block the competitors from selling in the open market.

I read an article today that was conveniently left out of the news here. It was about Apple blocking the sale of ultrabooks. How absurd, Ultrabooks can't compete anyway on merit, so why act like an acerbic bully and block them?

The answer is obvious, Apple is addicted to headlines, chaos, and an in your face attitude.

If they were struggling, that would be different. Then I could understand their approach. But to be so wildly successful, fat with cash, and act like a no class company is just absurd.

We have a vibrant tech sector ripe with development and exciting new innovation. Then we have Apple going after Google, Microsoft, Adobe, and anyone else they feel like, it's out of control. Yes, protect your IP, but there's choices in how you deal with violators. You don't have to shut them out of the market. That hurts everyone and gives the competition a reason to hate Apple.
 
Only used it to talk to 2 people in the past.

One is in the US so I guess it was good in that regard, but I don't talk to her anymore. The other being a friend who was using his iPad as he was getting his phone repaired, now he's got it back I don't use it at all.

Most people I know from my class have got iPads for free, but none of them use it either.

So yeah, not important to me at all.
 
If you travel a lot and fly with an airline that has wifi, iMessage is the best thing out. Allowing you to text everyone midflight through the wifi. :D
 
I don't use it. I've got so many other non proprietary options.

Apple is really starting to irritate me with their aggressive barbaric tactics to supress competition and create a monopoly.

What's aggressive and barbaric about iMessage, exactly? You said yourself: you have so many other non-proprietary options and you make use of them. Apple doesn't prevent you from using any of them. SMS isn't prohibited; WhatsApp and other IM clients aren't banned from the app store. iMessage itself uses XMPP, which is a Google-led open standard. And it's about the least intrusive feature of my iPhone. If it can work, it just works. If not, it falls back to SMS. Without the color changes and the prompt in the composition window, users mostly wouldn't even know the difference.

It's especially maddening since I'm a huge Apple enthusiast, shareholder, and long time loyal customer.

If you feel that strongly about it, perhaps you should sell your shares and buy GOOG.

I read an article today that was conveniently left out of the news here. It was about Apple blocking the sale of ultrabooks.

Apple is not blocking the sale of ultrabooks. Apple was granted a patent on the MacBook Air's specific design, and a few pundits out there immediately translated that to mean Apple might sue some people. And, apparently you translated that to mean Apple is suing Everyone On the Planet Who Makes Ultrabooks, right this minute. None of which is true.

Ultrabooks existed before the MacBook air. I know, I used to own one. And they will continue to exist, so long as they don't try to look exactly like a macBook air, much like how HP likes to make their Envy line look an awful lot like a certain other laptop:

HP-Envy-15-3040nr.jpg
224737-apple-macbook-pro-15-inch-core-i5-angle.jpg


Besides, what does any of this have to do with iMessage?
 
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Not important for me. I've got unlimited text for US based numbers. For international, everyone is using WhatsApp anyways since it is cross platform, so I use that (generally find it more reliable too)
 
Not a lot of people I text with have iPhones. I sadly found this out once iMessage came out. (And for some of those friends that iPhones, for some reason do not see a need to upgrade to the latest OS.) So it's not that important to me as it is for others.

However, with that being said, it does help for the people that do have iPhones. I have a $10 = 1000 text plan with at&t. I think with iMessage I can be a lot more comfortable that I won't go over the 1000 text limit for people that I text with that don't have iPhones. Therefore won't need an unlimited plan, which is the only plan that at&t is now offering.
 
(And for some of those friends that iPhones, for some reason do not see a need to upgrade to the latest OS.) So it's not that important to me as it is for others.

I once knew a few people who bought iPhones last fall. Texting them, I found out they had not upgraded to the latest that would enable iMessage. This is something that made news a few years back that about 25% of iPhone owners never connected their iPhones to computers to backup, let alone, to update firmware.

Some people just really have no idea and in the case of the two people I mentioned above, they didn't own a computer.
 
Never used iMessage, never will. At least until the well-known vulnerability with your messages still being delivered to old devices is fixed. I'm still shocked they haven't fixed that by now. I mean how hard is it to force logout iMessage sessions through a web interface or whatever? And shouldn't a remote wipe do that automatically?

In addition, very few people I know use iPhones. Kind of makes iMessage a moot point for me personally, anyways.
 
I just leave mine on since my girlfriend works in a hospital and no cell signal at all so iMessage works. Other then that SMS since I have unlimited.
 
I prefer not to chat so much (face to face) but then, my far away or shy contacts always get through with Whatsapp or Viber, so iMessage is cool and all but a bit pointless.
Plus the beta on Mac sucks, too much delay.
 
Who says everyone's texts are unlimited?
No one said everyone's texts are unlimited. The question this thread asks is "How important is iMessage to YOU".

The quote you made from me is in response to prior quotes stemming back to my original post which clearly states:

Not of any use to me at all.
Do have friends with iPhones, but my contract (as with most UK ones I beleive) has unlimited texts. That way I can send as many, or as long a message as I want without imessage.

All imessage gives then is a little "delivered" message, which I see little use in as never had an issue with normal messages not being delivered.

Still, I have no issue it being there, fair play to have more features.

Later this is queried as someone points out long SMS messages take up many texts and I reply:

The fact the message is Brocken up into 160 character blocks and sent as separate texts then joined again the other end is interly invisible to me and the recipient so utterly irrelevant. I can write a non iMessage text as long as I want with no issues so no limitation.

You then quote me saying:

Except it will use multiple texts up...

To which I reply:

Which means nothing when texts are unlimited.

As I am mealy continuing the conversation in reference to the original question of "How important is iMessage to YOU"
:)
 
I disabled it entirely a long time ago. Hopeless rubbish.

In the UK and have unlimited texts, which go to any phone and are vastly more reliable.
 
Need Help!!

Hey guys,

So, I'm currently in Japan for a few months, and I'm roaming on soft banks service on an iP4 with a 300mb international data plan. I use viber because I feel that is the most safe way to communicate for free. However viber sucks sometimes and the ***1*** person I want to talk to disappears from viber contacts for a little while. Sometimes a few hours. We've tried everything to get it to work, but as a backup we use imessage to talk. I got the intn'l data plan because I know that these services use this method to work. She and I both have 'send as sms - off'. My big worry is that when I check my data usage I notice my unlimited texts number keeps going up. I don't want any ridiculous texting fees, and I definitely don't want her to have any outrageous charges. Are we doing this right? I either text her on wifi or roaming on international data plan and my bubbles are always blue. I have NO international texting plan. Even though imessage is sent as data, can it still show up on your 'unlimited text counter' on the ATT app?
 
I'm a Blackberry user but I use my iPod Touch (iMessage) when I was in New York. They're both pretty much the same.

However, BBM and iMessage to me are useless. Most people have unlimited texting plans. The only benefit I see for it is if people are very money cautious, and since a lot of people use iPhones, they wouldn't need a texting plan.

I prefer SMS, but the only time I use iMessage/BBM is when I need to urgently talk to my friend, and I could see if they've read my reply or not, so if they dare ignore the message, they will feel my wraith. ;)

Also, there's tons of Apps now (like WhatsApp) that allows people from Android, Apple, Blackberry to communicate with each other. It's a free App too.
 
No you can't. You can send mass text messages from one group but when responding them come in individually. iMessage keeps replies in one group and everyone can see the conversation.

That's why I'm confused on something. My mom likes to send group messages to my sister, my brother and me when we are planning a family get together or something. My sister and I are the only ones who have iMessage (both have iOS5). My brother and mom have iPhones but only have a 3G iPhone so they don't have iOS5. Yet we all have a conversation in the same message.

Could that be because since we all have an iPhone it just automatically does that, no matter if one isn't and can't be using iMessage?
 
It really is a game changer for me. I use it all the time to talk to my fiancee who currently lives overseas. I just can't wait until they add more features to it such as share location. Either way, I think that iMessage is simply amazing and I love the fact that it is integrated into the messaging application. It makes thing simple and easy to use.
 
It used to be very important to me but since I got WhatsApp and Kik, I barely use it anymore. Anyway most of my friends have Blackberries and I don't so I'm able to message them in group chats. In my mind, Apple ****ed up with iMessage.
 
I hate how the iPhone sends group messages (not sure if it's other phones also) as MMS, yea it works great if everyone has an iPhone but it's a diaster for other phones.
 
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