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If I send an iMessage....(Question about charges)
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No. Your message is handled by Apple's servers and uses your data plan and his data plan. No international fees whatsoever.
Be warned that there are times where iMessage doesn't go through (or there have been for me). In these cases, it reverts to a standard text message. You can tell because the message bubble is green. For those you would almost certainly be charged. Make sure you have "send as SMS" disabled under your messages settings. That will keep that from happening.
If they have iMessage do not use their phone number to send them a message: use their email address that is associated with iMessage.
As mentioned, if iMessage can't send to a phone number it will revert to standard SMS which you do not want.
Michael
As mentioned, if iMessage can't send to a phone number it will revert to standard SMS which you do not want.
Michael
Why would you want to give up that feature though? Seems much easier to just send it to the email address--and everyone has at least one email address that can be used to receive iMessage messages. I do it all the time. Heck, I do that internationally regularly too, with no fear of it switching to SMS. Meanwhile, for the other 90% of my iMessage communication it still has the ability to revert to SMS (which happens semi-regularly and is a nice fallback).
Michael
If your internet is slow or drops too many packets to establish a secure connection with Apple, your phone will automatically revert to SMS. Since international SMS takes a buttload of money, disabling the SMS option under iMessages in Settings will prevent any extra charges from being racked up.
No iMessage is totally free but its for only iOS devices. You only can send message to iOS devices.
This is completely false. iMessage was available to those of us who downloaded the Messages public beta from Apple earlier this year. Anyone with Mac OS X 10.7.3 could run it, and send iMessages to other iPhones, iPads, iPods, and Macs. Messages replaced iChat.
They've recently pulled the beta download from their site ahead of the final release that will be part of OS X Mountain Lion, but if you downloaded the beta, it still functions as it should.
iMessage will be available in the Messages app included with Mountain Lion, as a replacement of the current iChat application.
What part of sending to email address was not clear to you? Sending an iMessage to an email address will never revert to SMS.
In my opinion turning off SMS is throwing the baby out with the bath water and completely unnecessary.
Michael
Do the free chargers still apply if I use iMessage and the other party in another country uses their messaging from their android? I assume this only applies from iMessage from one iPhone to another, no matter what part of the world you're messaging to.
I highlighted the part of your plan that makes this difficult.
Everyone I know has 2 or 3 email addresses and I don't really feel like asking everyone how they set up iMessage. The few times I've tried, I've found most people don't even know the answer.
So, phone number it is.
An iMessage can only be received by an Apple device. As such, if a message is sent as an iMessage to an Android device it will not be received. For people that swap between Android and iOS this has become a bit of a problem because you have to remember to essentially shut off iMessage before making the swap. Otherwise you can have issues with messages trying to be received as an iMessag which the android device obviously cannot do.
I highlighted the part where you got lost. Nowhere did I say anything about asking everyone for their iMessages email address.
This thread asked about sending from one person to one other person, and they happened to be in two different countries so there is a risk of iMessage reverting to SMS if using phone number. Got it?
The thread about exclusively using email addresses with iMessages is down the hall, to the left.
Michael
I've been texting two friends of mine, one has an HTC and the other a Samsung Galaxy, and they both have received my texts from my 4S using iMessage. I don't have any other texting apps.
I don't think you quite understood what I was saying, so I will give you a scenario.
Your friend with the Galaxy decides to try and iPhone. He uses iMessage. You send some messages back and forth. He then decides to go back to his Galaxy and you send him a text. iMessage is trying to send it as an iMessage, however it obviously cannot since the Galaxy does not receive iMessages. It doesn;t happen to 100% of the cases, but enough that there are many 100+ post long threads on apple support forums. It also happened to me as I swap between Android and iOS devices.
I wouldn't fabricate this. I've been texting with the 4S since October 2011, especially with the one friend with an HTC. I'm not big texting, so iMessage is the only one I use which came with the 4S. I send photos and texts when I travel and they both receive my messages (Galaxy and HTC Hero). The message bubbles are not green, they are blue. I have to verify the color, it's something I never paid attention too until you asked. I do think it's blue though.
I'm just saying, it's completely improbable. Blue means iMessages, and iMessages mean Apple's servers, and Apple's servers mean iOS only.
Message bubbles are for sure green if sent to an HTC. The application on the iPhone is called Messages, not iMessage. iMessage is, in Apple's words "built into the Messages app." When not sending to a valid iMessage recipient the Messages app simply uses SMS (on iPhones).
That is really nothing out of the ordinary. I have plenty of non-Apple friends that I regularly message from my iPhone 4S. What would be surprising is if the Messaging app on the iPhone only allowed iMessage messages (the way it is on the mac, iPod, and iPad).
If you still think you are sending iMessages to your friend's HTC here is a quick way to prove that it cannot: turn on Airplane mode, then turn on WiFi. Try to send a message to the HTC. Watch it fail. It would not fail if it could send as iMessage, which only requires Internet.
Michael
iMessage is not an app. iMessage is a service. Only Apple products support the iMessage service.