iMessage clarification

If you're NOT on wifi, then you'll have to be data roaming for the iMessage to be sent... And you probably will get slapped with a bit of a bigger phone bill. I believe AT&T is 20 dollars/mb on roaming, at least in some countries. Others may be more or less.


The best thing to do is to use Wifi to send your imessages, and also turn the option off in imessages that will send the message as a normal plain text message if the iMessage fails to go through.


Alternatively, you can get an app like Viber (free) or WhatsApp which will let you send texts/IM's to other people who also have these apps on their phones, but unlike iMessage, these messages will always be delivered either via push or when the person opens the App. These apps also need some type of data connection such as Wifi or 3G etc, but in my experience, they are more reliable when abroad than just iMessage alone, at least when you're trying to NOT use roaming.

 

If you're not on wifi you will still incur international data usage charges.

Likewise, they'll have to pay for the data used, as normal.

But neither of you would pay for SMS.

 

Yup, but I think (someone please correct me if I'm wrong!) AT&T rounds up to the nearest MB, so if you roam even once abroad, you get billed for at least 1MB.

 

Which iPhone do you have?

I would probably get a text plan if I knew I was only getting it for texting purposes, reason being that it's pretty common for an iMessage not to be delivered and then get resent as a regular text. Anytime the person on the receiving end does not have 3G or wifi, he can't receive your iMessages. For me, this is pretty common with traveling in subways, elevators, etc.

Since either option will basically achieve the same goal though, you might as well just go with whatever's cheaper for now and consider this a trial run.