iMessage — How does it work?

[EssentialParado]

iMessage isn't supported by my carrier on my iPhone but I can use it on WiFi using my email address… I used it for the first time today and it worked great messaging some of my contacts, but when I went out for the day and returned, I had replies that I only received when I got home back on WiFi, which I usually would've received as texts while I was out. So I have a couple of questions if anyone knows the answers…

1) If I have iMessage set up on my iPhone but without my phone number attached, but the person has received normal text messages from me before, would an iMessage show up on their iPhone as being from me and included in the text message thread, or would it show up as being treated as a separate contact? What if they have me as a contact on their phone with both that number and that email address?

2) Assuming my iMessages and texts are treating me as being the same contact on my friends' phones, is there a way I can have their iPhones know to send replies as standard text messages when I'm out and not on WiFi? I have iMessage set up on my iPad and iMac — thus I received those messages to those devices while I was out — if I deactivated both for iMessage, would those messages have been sent to my iPhone as text messages?

A bit complicated but hopefully someone will know the answers…

 

[vettori]

May I ask what you mean with 'iMessage isn't supported by my carrier' ?
iMessage is a network service and, unless your carrier is filtering specific services on your internet connection, it should work !

1) I've not tested it, but I'm pretty sure messages sent to different recipients (your phone number, your iMessage account) will not form a single thread.
When you send an iMessage using the email address, your name will be displayed only if they have your email on the address book.

2) When the device of your friend sends the message, it looks if you're reachable using iMessage. If you are, it will send an iMessage. There's no way for him to know if you are on the phone or on the iPad. If you turn iMessage off on the iPad and mac (or turn them off) and your friend has the 'send as sms' option enabled, his device will send you a regular text, but only if your iMessage account is a phone number (not your case).

 

[faroZ06]

I am also a bit confused about what name your iMessage thing is under. I think you can type in a phone number and send an iMessage to that if it's an iPhone, but does it look like it's from your number or from aleclinux@ aol.com (in my case)? And could someone just type aleclinux@ aol.com to send me an iMessage?

 

[vettori]

I am also a bit confused about what name your iMessage thing is under. I think you can type in a phone number and send an iMessage to that if it's an iPhone, but does it look like it's from your number or from aleclinux@ aol.com (in my case)?
There's an option on the device settings app into 'Messages' to choose which 'sender' must be used when you send a message.

And could someone just type aleclinux@ aol.com to send me an iMessage?

Yes if you configured iMessage with your email account.

 

[EssentialParado]

May I ask what you mean with 'iMessage isn't supported by my carrier' ?
iMessage is a network service and, unless your carrier is filtering specific services on your internet connection, it should work !

1) I've not tested it, but I'm pretty sure messages sent to different recipients (your phone number, your iMessage account) will not form a single thread.
When you send an iMessage using the email address, your name will be displayed only if they have your email on the address book.

2) When the device of your friend sends the message, it looks if you're reachable using iMessage. If you are, it will send an iMessage. There's no way for him to know if you are on the phone or on the iPad. If you turn iMessage off on the iPad and mac (or turn them off) and your friend has the 'send as sms' option enabled, his device will send you a regular text, but only if your iMessage account is a phone number (not your case).

Thanks for the reply, vettori.

Yeah, my carrier doesn't support shorthand texts so my iPhone can't send the secret text messages required to register my phone number with iMessage. (I'm gonna see if there's a way around this...)

To confirm some of your answers, I figured out I show up as a separate contact on their phone.

I also figured out that turning off iMessage on my iMac and iPad doesn't help. It seems I need to get my phone number associated with iMessage, then it'll work and be able to determine when I'm home or not. (And then hopefully, theoretically, will send my friend's messages to me as text messages instead…)

 

[vettori]

I also figured out that turning off iMessage on my iMac and iPad doesn't help. It seems I need to get my phone number associated with iMessage, then it'll work and be able to determine when I'm home or not. (And then hopefully, theoretically, will send my friend's messages to me as text messages instead…)

Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to explain, send as sms will work only on phone numbers !

 

[EssentialParado]

Yes, that's exactly what I was trying to explain, send as sms will work only on phone numbers !

Ah, makes sense when you put it that way

I've realized I could send a text to the full international Apple iMessage activation phone number — 011447786205094 — rather than use a shortcode, but that would require jailbreaking my phone and changing core files, which I'd rather not do…

But does anyone happen to know what is actually sent in the secret activation sms message, content-wise? Could I just send a basic text message with required information to that address and it would activate iMessage? I tried a blank text but didn't appear to work.

 

[swordfish5736]

Who's your carrier?

 

[EssentialParado]

Who's your carrier?

Speakout Wireless…

Independent carrier using the Rogers network.