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iPhone iMessage Question

I

iMessageMe

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 10, 2013
2
0
Hello, I have an iPhone running iOS 6.1.4; I am using iMessage in America, iMessaging back and forth with a friend who is currently overseas. I turned off MMS / SMS so that charges won't occur if iMessage fails at a certain point. My provider is AT&T and I am using 4G LTE with Unlimited Messaging. My question is: Being on 4G LTE does it cost me at all for iMessaging someone who is overseas? Or do I need to be on Wi-Fi for it to be free... Or is it free regardless?

Thanks!
 
I finally upgraded my 3 year old iPhone 4 to iOS 6.1.3 yesterday - it has been on iOS 4.01 since I bought it - LOL!

But I would also like some further clarification about how iMessage works. My friend in Greece has an iPhone 4s on iOS 6 and I would like to stay in touch without international text message charges. I have turned off MMS/SMS and my friend has done the same.

I have only used iMessage to send some texts to my daughter here in the US today, so I don't quite "get it" yet. How does the system know that you want to use iMessage instead of a regular text message? I assume that it first tries to deliver the message via the internet. But if that fails (for whatever reason), won't it then send a regular SMS message? Is there some way to force it to only use iMessage?

Sorry, I'm probably missing something really obvious here. ;)
 
Boyd01 said:
I finally upgraded my 3 year old iPhone 4 to iOS 6.1.3 yesterday - it has been on iOS 4.01 since I bought it - LOL!

But I would also like some further clarification about how iMessage works. My friend in Greece has an iPhone 4s on iOS 6 and I would like to stay in touch without international text message charges. I have turned off MMS/SMS and my friend has done the same.

I have only used iMessage to send some texts to my daughter here in the US today, so I don't quite "get it" yet. How does the system know that you want to use iMessage instead of a regular text message? I assume that it first tries to deliver the message via the internet. But if that fails (for whatever reason), won't it then send a regular SMS message? Is there some way to force it to only use iMessage?

Sorry, I'm probably missing something really obvious here. ;)
Click to expand...
If you already turned off MMS/SMS then there's really no way for the phone to try to send a regular SMS. Essentially you have to make sure that the setting to try to send an SMS if iMessage fails is disabled in the settings for Messages. Beyond that, as long as your conversation is show to be an iMessage one (and uses blue text bubbles) then you are using iMessage and there's no other messaging (SMS or anything like that) involved.
 
Thanks. I just found this article which says more or less the same thing: http://www.ianswerguy.com/imessage-sent-as-sms-text-message/

So, just to be clear (sorry if I'm being dense), as long as the recipient has setup iMessage using their Apple ID, and they have disabled SMS/MMS, I will get a blue "send" button in the Message app.

And if I see the blue button, the message will ONLY be delivered via the internet and it will just fail if the receipient doesn't have some kind of data connection (wifi/3g or whatever).

Does that sound right?
 
Boyd01 said:
Thanks. I just found this article which says more or less the same thing: http://www.ianswerguy.com/imessage-sent-as-sms-text-message/

So, just to be clear (sorry if I'm being dense), as long as the recipient has setup iMessage using their Apple ID, and they have disabled SMS/MMS, I will get a blue "send" button in the Message app.

And if I see the blue button, the message will ONLY be delivered via the internet and it will just fail if the receipient doesn't have some kind of data connection (wifi/3g or whatever).

Does that sound right?
Click to expand...
As long as you have disabled the setting to send as SMS if iMessage fails, and you see the blue send button and blue text bubbles when sending messages, then you are all set. (If you want to be sure that you also don't recieve any SMS/MMS messages from a particular person, then that person should also make sure to set things up the same way so that they don't send you an SMS/MMS accidentally.)
 
jav6454 said:
iMessages are free regardless where the other person is and/or if you use 3G/4G/LTE/Wi-Fi...
Click to expand...

While iMessages are free themselves, they still cost something if you are using 3G / 4G. Every iMessage sent counts as using data on your cellular plan. Usually iMessages are very small and use insignificant amounts of data, but they are not entirely free.

On wifi it uses your local internet connection to send and will consume part of your monthly bandwidth limit if you have one (no many ISP's do this anymore).
 
alexrmc92 said:
While iMessages are free themselves, they still cost something if you are using 3G / 4G. Every iMessage sent counts as using data on your cellular plan. Usually iMessages are very small and use insignificant amounts of data, but they are not entirely free.

On wifi it uses your local internet connection to send and will consume part of your monthly bandwidth limit if you have one (no many ISP's do this anymore).
Click to expand...

Obviously there is a cost involved in having the service overall (your ISP or cell provider), but Apple themselves do not charge you. So in that instance they are free. Unlike texts messages which carriers like Verizon, AT&T like to charge an arm and a leg for.
 
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