Surely it'll affect you more (in terms of cost) if you send these pics over MMS?
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- Thread starter GeorgieAcevedo
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Surely it'll affect you more (in terms of cost) if you send these pics over MMS?
For me, this has happened. Enough of my friends and contacts that I text with have iPhones/iPod Touches/iPads and use iMessage, that the couple thousand or so text messages I used to send every month have dropped down to no more than 50. At a full $.25 per message, that's less than a $20 unlimited messaging plan.
If you do the math, the magic number here is 80. If iMessage brings down your actual text messaging usage to under 80 per month, then you can probably drop the texting plan and save a little money.
Sounds like maybe iMessage, and probably even iCloud and lots of other iOS 5.1 enhancements are just not for you. Even so, it seems like someone who makes a point of turning all those things just because they don't see the usefulness of them is missing out, especially since there's no real benefit in turning things like iMessage completely off, just because.
You know, I'm on these forums a lot, and I haven't seen "all the issues" with iMessage. There are a few threads here and there about some iMessage problems from some users, but that doesn't mean it's pervasive. It seems pretty much in-line to me with the typical number of people who experience an issue or glitch with a lot of other aspects of iOS and iPhones.
By this line of reasoning, it would seem to me that you shouldn't even use an iPhone at all, what with "all the issues" that "everyone" is having with battery life issues, screen tint, glass cracking, stuck or failing buttons, going to sleep and not waking up... all problems that, by using the number of iMessage problem threads as a yardstick, clearly means that every iPhone in every users' hands are 100% defective deathtraps. Right?
Sending an MMS message (required for sending pictures) also uses data, and will also affect you if you send lots of pictures. As do videos, visual voice mail messages, and even group text-only messages.
On the other hand, if you're connected to WiFi, iMessage won't touch your data plan at all, which isn't the case for MMS.
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That's quite weird. I mean I know it shows as squares to blackberry or android users.
I like it on, just wish it worked properly.
It only seems to work properly on my iPad when I'm typing continually. If I leave the iPad alone and the screen goes off, or if I use another app, messages are delayed..sometimes by about three minutes, sometimes by twenty, some messages are delivered in wrong order and some don't send at all.
This is on wifi.
It only seems to work properly on my iPad when I'm typing continually. If I leave the iPad alone and the screen goes off, or if I use another app, messages are delayed..sometimes by about three minutes, sometimes by twenty, some messages are delivered in wrong order and some don't send at all.
This is on wifi.
That's awesome for you. All my friends, and most of my coworkers are Android junkies. The only person I text regularly that owns an iPhone is my fiance. That removes about 500-1000 texts per month, but it still wouldn't be worth it to dump my text package. Truth be told I didn't used to text... at all until about two years ago. Work started virtually requiring it, now it's the number one thing I do on any phone.
I've never had any "issues" with it, other than a couple of people where it would fall back to SMS- but there was no overall disruption of functionality.
MMS is NOT billed to your data plan, even though it is data.
One cool thing that happened was someone sent me a video over iMessage- that was really cool. Not essential, but cool.
Now if Apple released iMessage for BB and Android, or if RIM released BBM for iPhone and Android, that would put a dent in SMS. It still wouldn't help me though, as I have a lot of friends who are still in the stone age of having dumbphones. I really don't know how they survive.
MMS is NOT billed to your data plan, even though it is data.
One cool thing that happened was someone sent me a video over iMessage- that was really cool. Not essential, but cool.
Now if Apple released iMessage for BB and Android, or if RIM released BBM for iPhone and Android, that would put a dent in SMS. It still wouldn't help me though, as I have a lot of friends who are still in the stone age of having dumbphones. I really don't know how they survive.
I have AT&T and totally canceled my texting because of this reason. Everyone I talk to has an iPhone and if they dont they can contact me on fb.
I have the $5 200txt plan and for me iMessage is a great way to have left over txt since most of the people around me 85% use an iPhone and 10% of the remaining 15% use Whatsapp.
I only wish group msj could send to some in it an iMessage and to others regular txt in the same group txt instead of all in normal txt.
Maybe I am missing something (and I usually am), but I don't have a texting plan and have never paid for a text. I love iMessage. It is not perfect, but as someone said earlier, nothing is. I use textfree for free texting to anyone who does not use iMessage and have never had a problem with it. I don't do much texting with anyone other than my wife and sister, so I am anything but a heavy texter and these things may not work for someone who is. Bottom line is, I do not see the sense in paying for texting. You are already paying for a data plan and likely paying at home for wifi access. Use these along with a free texting app and iMessage and save the money.
1. Same number. It's hard to explain to a hundred different people who might have your number that they need to text you at a different number.
2. Reliability. Carrier SMS works even with very weak signals, and on networks where data isn't flowing well or at all.
3. Volume. Those free texting apps don't work well when you're trying to text a lot. They are slow, have to reload, etc, using native messaging on a device is a lot better.
4. MMS and short codes. These don't work over free text applications. I think GV finally added the ability to mass text.
That being said, doing them over data gives you the advantage of having texting if you're in a room with no cell service, and GV is a pretty decent replacement for carrier SMS.
Never really noticed how useful iMessage was until i had to fly into a different airport and had to find someone to pick me up while I was in the air. Pulled out my iPad and was able to iMessage my bf and about 5 friends to secure a pickup.
I just usually see it as a cool feature that enables me to seamlessly move my convos between my iPad and iPhone but it really came in handy.
I just usually see it as a cool feature that enables me to seamlessly move my convos between my iPad and iPhone but it really came in handy.
I really like iMessage. It is something I have wanted to exist for a while but I don't think it works properly yet.
I have constant problems with it when I use the desktop client. I am aware it's in beta but that does not detract from the fact that my messages will almost never send successfully on the first go. I will have to click the red ! to resend.
Clicking on a message on the desktop client often does not remove the number on the icon in the dock and whenever you go to close the iMessage window it pesters you to read the unread messages that you can't switch to read.
Sometimes it doesn't sync properly and you'll lose massive sections of conversation between two people for no reason. There needs to be some sort of refresh keyboard shortcut to allow the user to get the message that has appeared on all of their other devices except the desktop client.
I have constant problems with it when I use the desktop client. I am aware it's in beta but that does not detract from the fact that my messages will almost never send successfully on the first go. I will have to click the red ! to resend.
Clicking on a message on the desktop client often does not remove the number on the icon in the dock and whenever you go to close the iMessage window it pesters you to read the unread messages that you can't switch to read.
Sometimes it doesn't sync properly and you'll lose massive sections of conversation between two people for no reason. There needs to be some sort of refresh keyboard shortcut to allow the user to get the message that has appeared on all of their other devices except the desktop client.
Between google voice, whatsapp, and I message, I send several hundred texts a month. About 5% don't go through and it's nice to have SMS as a backup for iMessage. I text a few people that don't have smartphones so I keep the old $5/200 messages plan. I disable messages on my iPad and didn't install it for my
Mac because those devices I share with people or at least the screens are so large other people can see it and I wouldn't want people seeing my texts and it would interrupt work and reading books too much.
Mac because those devices I share with people or at least the screens are so large other people can see it and I wouldn't want people seeing my texts and it would interrupt work and reading books too much.
Thanks. These things I can kinda understand. However, I highly doubt my volume will ever be high enough where it would be a factor, and I don't even know what MMS and short codes mean, so I don't think I need to worry about them. Your first point is well taken. I can certainly understand wha kind of pain it would be to tell all of them about a new number to text you. In my case though, the few people I text have been using my textfree number since I started texting. They have it under my name in their contact list and just hit the button so to speak to text me.
Personally to me I think iMessage is great and just makes sense. I have 500 texts per month plan with Verizon and a lot of the people I text the most (including my wife) have an iPhone running IOS 5 or higher. I can definitely say that iMessage has saved me money and that's always a good thing. Funny thing is everyone in my office has an iPhone and all three of us are with different carriers, but when we iMessage each other, it's all good cause it is free. I especially like the delivered receipts, to me it at least lets me know the other person got the message. Also I really like how I can iMessage my kids on their iPods
MMS is picture messaging. Great for quick stuff, and sending to dumbphone users. Not essential by any means.
Short codes are those shorter numbers that you can text to get info about stuff. I have one for my school's sports stuff, and one for weather alerts from a local TV station and a daily forecast, otherwise I wouldn't remember to check!
I have a friend who uses GV for his texting on a DROID RAZR MAXX. He never had carrier texting, so it was a natural choice. He's also relatively low volume. It would be rough switching to a separate number. The best way I can think of to do it, is on Android switch EVERYTHING over to GV, and tell everyone you number has changed effective xyz date and time.
I would recommend trying GV, it's a lot better than the other free texting solutions out there, although you would have switch people over. You could have both running, but you wouldn't want to regularly use both, since it would get annoying. GV allows you to use a computer as well, which is one upside to GV that carrier texting doesn't have.