iMessage Syncing Problems

Hi,

I'm having a bunch of issues getting my iMessages to sync across my iPhone 4s, iPad 2, and Macbook Pro. I'll start by saying all are running the most up-to-date software and nothing is jailbroken. I used to be an Android user so all of my contacts are set up on all my devices to sync from my Google account to my address book. Here are the problems I'm having:

1) When I text iPhone users, iMessages work like they should except for with one friend. He has an iPhone but it sends everything as a text and we both have iMessages enabled. Any ideas here?

2) My iMessages won't sync with my iPad. I have it set up so I receive iMessages at my email address that is also my Apple Id. No clue why this won't work correctly because I have a friend who has it set up the exact same way but he doesn't have any problems. iMessages are set up to be received at both my phone number and Apple Id on my iPhone.

3) On my Macbook, the only iMessages that I receive are those from contacts I've created since I got my iPhone. I think this is obviously happening because they're being created as contacts from my phone and not from Google. However, all these contacts still show up under my Google contacts too. That makes me think there's something strange going on because clearly the contacts sync both ways between Google and my Apple address book so they should all have the same behavior.

4) Lastly, anytime I send an iMessage from my Macbook it shows up to the other person as it being from my email. Is there any way to get these to show up as being sent from my phone? Also, since I'm receiving a few contacts' iMessages on my laptop, if I respond to them on my computer will it show up from my phone number or from my email? It seems like it would send from the email but wouldn't that create a new messages thread? That would be annoying to send a text to someone's phone but then their response comes in from a different source.

Sorry for the novel and thanks for all help.

 

So basically, iMessages are only going to my phone because they're being sent to my phone number and not Apple Id email? But then how are these other texts from new contacts coming to all my devices? It makes no sense.

 

That's what I was getting, but that doesn't explain why my new contacts are being sent to all my devices when they only have my phone number.

I'm wondering now if I exported all of my contacts, deleted them, and created them again if all my conversations would sync across all my devices.