iMessage cross-device usage?

[Tanax]

Hello!

I have a few questions regarding iMessage that I hope the community here will be able to help me shed some light on. There are no sticky help-thread about this and searching for it didn't really get me any specific answers.

Anyhow!
My current situation; I have an iPad 2(with iOS 5) and is currently waiting for an iPhone 4S to be shipped(which will come with iOS 5 as I'm sure you know).

iMessage on the iPad 2 has worked great. I can send messages to people with iPhone when I'm connected to a WiFi network(I don't have the 3G model).

1. Am I correct in assuming that the reciever will only get my message if he or she is connected to the Internet? And does this have to be WiFi network or can it be a 3G network?

When I get my iPhone, I'm kinda confused about how things will work out for me.

2. When people send me an iMessage from their iPhone, will I get that on both my iPad and my iPhone if both of them are connected to the Internet?

3. When I send a message from my iPhone when I'm connected to the Internet, will it automatically try to send it as an iMessage if the person I am sending it to has iOS 5 and is connected to the Internet aswell? Or will I have to just try it and then send it as an SMS if it doesn't work?

4. I assume that everything that is sent via iMessage(i.e. NOT with SMS) is logged and thus the conversation history is accessible from either device regardless of which device was used when writing a specific iMessage. Is this correct?

I think this is it for now!
Thanks

 

[waw74]

1. they deliver over wi-fi or 3g.

2. in the settings for messages there is a "receive at" item, on you ipad, it contains your email (you can have multiples), on the phone it contains your phone number, and your email.
once you have more than one (at least i think so, it's this way on my phone, but not ipad) there is a callerID option, if you use your email, it will go to both devices.
i started a conversation with a friend from my ipad, since it was using my email as the callerid, the whole conversation (my texts and his) showed up on both devices.
it appears the phone shifted over to receiving on the email from this person.

3. from what i've seen, when you start a new message, it is defaulted to SMS (green send button), it then checks the address against apple's servers, and will switch to imessage (blue send button) once it confirms that they are able to receive (usually about a second). Once a person has gotten an imessage from you, they stay blue, but it still tries to check, because i pulled up messages in the subway, and someone i had been imessaging with had turned green, but went back to blue once i got above ground.

4. Yes, the chat window syncs themselves up on both devices, so things you send from the ipad will show up on the phone and vice-versa

 

[Tanax]

1. they deliver over wi-fi or 3g.

2. in the settings for messages there is a "receive at" item, on you ipad, it contains your email (you can have multiples), on the phone it contains your phone number, and your email.
once you have more than one (at least i think so, it's this way on my phone, but not ipad) there is a callerID option, if you use your email, it will go to both devices.
i started a conversation with a friend from my ipad, since it was using my email as the callerid, the whole conversation (my texts and his) showed up on both devices.
it appears the phone shifted over to receiving on the email from this person.

3. from what i've seen, when you start a new message, it is defaulted to SMS (green send button), it then checks the address against apple's servers, and will switch to imessage (blue send button) once it confirms that they are able to receive (usually about a second). Once a person has gotten an imessage from you, they stay blue, but it still tries to check, because i pulled up messages in the subway, and someone i had been imessaging with had turned green, but went back to blue once i got above ground.

4. Yes, the chat window syncs themselves up on both devices, so things you send from the ipad will show up on the phone and vice-versa

Thanks for the reply!

1. Alright, good to know!
2. Oh, cool. So when I get my iPhone 4S I'll just go into the messages settings and set the "Recieve at" to my email instead of my phone-number. But it will still be up to the sender to decide if they want to send it to my mail OR my phone-number, right?

Counter-questions about this;
a) If they send a message to my phone-number, it will only be sent as a text-message without checking if they are sending it to an iOS 5 device(which they are if they're sending it to me)? And if sent as a regular SMS it will not sync between both devices(since the iPad doesn't have a number).
b) If they instead send a message to my email, it will behave like a normal iMessage conversation?

All of these scenarios assume that both devices are connected to Internet and are iOS 5 devices.

3. Alright, that's cool! I think I read somewhere when I searched before creating this thread that you could somehow change the default from SMS to iMessage -- but I might be mistaken.

4. Awesome! Perfect

 

[intrepid00]

4. Yes, the chat window syncs themselves up on both devices, so things you send from the ipad will show up on the phone and vice-versa

This actually pretty untrue. If you have an iphone and someone imessages using your phone number it almost never goes to the ipad unless you then send some filler message to them via their phone number on the ipad then it usually works.

There appears to be no way to add a phone number to your ipad for iMessage to receive at.

 

[Tanax]

This actually pretty untrue. If you have an iphone and someone imessages using your phone number it almost never goes to the ipad unless you then send some filler message to them via their phone number on the ipad then it usually works.

There appears to be no way to add a phone number to your ipad for iMessage to receive at.

But if they send a message to my phone number, won't it ALWAYS be sent as an SMS then? I thought that sending an iMessage(as in; a message over the Internet) had to be made via a person's email. If this is not true then it's quite nice.. but quite confusing aswell XD