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iOS 5, iMessage and roaming

P

plittlemore

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 23, 2010
11
1
Cambridge, UK
Does anyone know what the behaviour of iMessage will be when your roaming? Given the iPhone has an option to disable data roaming what would stop iMessages being sent to your phone when you have no data coverage?

There is probably something clever in there, but the last thing I want is anyone with an iOS 5 device to only be able to get in touch when I'm in WiFi coverage.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Yes it would unless there is a wifi connection
 
Gav2k said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Yes wi would unless there is a wifi connection
Click to expand...

That's a bit pants given the person sending me a message would be automatically enticed into using iMessage even though I'm not actually able to receive it.... Bit of an oversight by apple I think.
 
plittlemore said:
That's a bit pants given the person sending me a message would be automatically enticed into using iMessage even though I'm not actually able to receive it.... Bit of an oversight by apple I think.
Click to expand...

If you can't receive an iMessage, the other end will know and it will send a text instead.
 
Peteman100 said:
Is there any definitive source for that? People in other threads have been claiming that the iMessage will be held until you return to data coverage.
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It will be resent as an SMS after 5 minutes.

For one device to detect whether the recipient is "online" or not would be far too complicated.

IMO iMessage is nowhere near transparent enough. It does not ask the user how they want messages to be sent. If the final release works the same way, I can see a lot of people wondering why they have an unusually high bill.
 
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Daveoc64 said:
IMO iMessage is nowhere near transparent enough. It does not ask the user how they want messages to be sent. If the final release works the same way, I can see a lot of people wondering why they have an unusually high bill.
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so you're saying people are too stupid to notice that the messages app actually tells you what type of message you're sending before you send it when it's either green for SMS and blue for iMessage? and even more stupid that they don't see in the box before they type that it says either Text Message or iMessage? if they're too stupid to see that before sending a message, they deserve a high bill.
 
andythursby said:
so you're saying people are too stupid to notice that the messages app actually tells you what type of message you're sending before you send it when it's either green for SMS and blue for iMessage? and even more stupid that they don't see in the box before they type that it says either Text Message or iMessage? if they're too stupid to see that before sending a message, they deserve a high bill.
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As I've said before, Apple should offer more options so that you can make the Messages app do exactly what the user wants.
 
Daveoc64 said:
As I've said before, Apple should offer more options so that you can make the Messages app do exactly what the user wants.
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that's not what i was responding to, nice to gloss over it. you were claiming that no1 would know what they were sending and would get a high bill because of it, i was making it clear for people who haven't used it yet, that you will always know what you are doing in messages and it's very open about what's going on.

you have options to not use iMessage if you don't want to. ok at the moment you have to go into settings to turn it off, but it's currently in beta and they might change this on release, so for all we know, that could be changed by then. until then, you can't bitch about it like it's the ultimate final version like you have been doing.
 
andythursby said:
that's not what i was responding to, nice to gloss over it. you were claiming that no1 would know what they were sending and would get a high bill because of it, i was making it clear for people who haven't used it yet, that you will always know what you are doing in messages and it's very open about what's going on.
Click to expand...

Except, as noted in the other thread, when it decides to send a message as an SMS without permission. There isn't an option to use iMessage and SMS totally separate from one another.

There is no way to send an SMS to a contact who uses iMessage unless you disable iMessage.

You can't choose to send an iMessage to your friends with an iPad or iPod touch and an SMS to your friends with an iPhone.

andythursby said:
you have options to not use iMessage if you don't want to. ok at the moment you have to go into settings to turn it off, but it's currently in beta and they might change this on release, so for all we know, that could be changed by then. until then, you can't bitch about it like it's the ultimate final version like you have been doing.
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Knowing Apple, they will not change a thing with iMessage. I can't count the number of issues in iOS that have been ignored despite bug reports. The way the feature has been designed, it's clear that changing how it works would be an inherent overhaul of the entire system.
 
plittlemore said:
Does anyone know what the behaviour of iMessage will be when your roaming? Given the iPhone has an option to disable data roaming what would stop iMessages being sent to your phone when you have no data coverage?

There is probably something clever in there, but the last thing I want is anyone with an iOS 5 device to only be able to get in touch when I'm in WiFi coverage.
Click to expand...

I am not sure of the overall behavior of the iPhone when using iMessage on data roaming, but I think if you are going to have to roam with sending messages through iMessage, than you might as well wait until your in a Wi-Fi zone, or just text through SMS. As long as you have data or Wi-Fi on, you will be able to text any other iOS 5 device. By the way, if you have an unlimited texting plan, then iMessage would be a secondary service for sending texts to iOS 5 devices, but if you have a limited amount of texts, than sending texts to iOS 5 devices will be free, but will have used more of your data plan, unless your in a Wi-Fi zone all the time...
 
Daveoc64 said:
The way the feature has been designed, it's clear that changing how it works would be an inherent overhaul of the entire system.
Click to expand...

lol [sarcasm]wow, didn't know you worked on iOS for apple, since you seem to know such facts like that! [/sarcasm] you have no idea what it would take to do it, for all we know, they may have noticed it on an internal build and already started changing it.
 
andythursby said:
lol [sarcasm]wow, didn't know you worked on iOS for apple, since you seem to know such facts like that! [/sarcasm] you have no idea what it would take to do it, for all we know, they may have noticed it on an internal build and already started changing it.
Click to expand...

It's clear that:

a) They intend for it to be integrated with the "Messages" app.
b) They intend for it to be "seamless" - in the sense that assuming everything's working out ok you wont be able to tell the difference between SMS and iMessage
c) As with all Apple products, customization is off of the table

Changing any of these three would be a major deviation from the feature described and promoted by Apple as well as produced in beta form in iOS 5.0

Of course Apple can make changes, but I do not see why they would now as these problems are simply inherent to the way they have made the system (and would have been obvious before they implemented it in the Beta).

These aren't glitches or bugs. If you intend for iMessages and SMS to be integrated, you have to accept that isn't going to be perfect.
 
Epic Orange said:
I am not sure of the overall behavior of the iPhone when using iMessage on data roaming, but I think if you are going to have to roam with sending messages through iMessage, than you might as well wait until your in a Wi-Fi zone, or just text through SMS. As long as you have data or Wi-Fi on, you will be able to text any other iOS 5 device. By the way, if you have an unlimited texting plan, then iMessage would be a secondary service for sending texts to iOS 5 devices, but if you have a limited amount of texts, than sending texts to iOS 5 devices will be free, but will have used more of your data plan, unless your in a Wi-Fi zone all the time...
Click to expand...

Your talking about sending, I'm asking about receiving how does someone in the UK running iOS 5 know that I'm out of the country and that I might not be in WiFi coverage?
 
Peteman100 said:
I'd prefer it to be seamless, as long as it's smart enough to account for situations like roaming
Click to expand...

plittlemore said:
Your talking about sending, I'm asking about receiving how does someone in the UK running iOS 5 know that I'm out of the country and that I might not be in WiFi coverage?
Click to expand...

if data roaming is turned off, then it won't send an iMessage, since it's data based. therefore if you have roaming turned on, you're gonna get an iMessage.
 
Daveoc64 said:
It's clear that:

a) They intend for it to be integrated with the "Messages" app.
b) They intend for it to be "seamless" - in the sense that assuming everything's working out ok you wont be able to tell the difference between SMS and iMessage
c) As with all Apple products, customization is off of the table

Changing any of these three would be a major deviation from the feature described and promoted by Apple as well as produced in beta form in iOS 5.0

Of course Apple can make changes, but I do not see why they would now as these problems are simply inherent to the way they have made the system (and would have been obvious before they implemented it in the Beta).

These aren't glitches or bugs. If you intend for iMessages and SMS to be integrated, you have to accept that isn't going to be perfect.
Click to expand...

Have you used the beta? It is VERY easy to tell whether you are sending an iMessage or SMS.
 
But if you are already paying for SMS then it isn't any extra cost. I guess I am confused :confused:
 
blubyu said:
But if you are already paying for SMS then it isn't any extra cost. I guess I am confused :confused:
Click to expand...

What if I'm abroad? What if the recipient is abroad?

If I tell the device to send a free iMessage to someone, that shouldn't also mean that the device can send it as a paid SMS due to the system not working correctly.
 
Daveoc64 said:
What if I'm abroad? What if the recipient is abroad?

If I tell the device to send a free iMessage to someone, that shouldn't also mean that the device can send it as a paid SMS due to the system not working correctly.
Click to expand...

This feature is easily turned off though.

'Settings > Messages > Send as SMS?'
 
iMessage Data Roaming

Could we not fix this with a new setting that was something like "data roaming off except for iMessage"

Blackberry users are charged for BBM when roaming but because its just text based i believe its relatively cheap. Would be nice if apple copied this.
 
Peteman100 said:
Is there any definitive source for that? People in other threads have been claiming that the iMessage will be held until you return to data coverage.
Click to expand...

It's much like Facetime. It knows whether the other person is on, and it falls back to texting if the other person isn't on.

This is why it makes you wait before being able to send an iMessage. It's doing a check.
 
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