iMessage while abroad?

[kylera]

My girlfriend is about to go abroad for a couple of weeks. She will not be enabling roaming on her iPhone 5 (running iOS 7), and instead rely on wifi through her trip.

The last time she went abroad, she was unable to talk to me via iMessage but said she could receive my texts. What settings should be tweaked on her or my end so we can iMessage even when she's abroad?

I have iMessage active on an iPad 4 and an iPhone 4S, both on iOS 6.

 

[chabig]

She needs an internet connection to use iMessage. It's that simple. When she is on wifi, she can iMessage. She can also FaceTime or Skype.

 

[kylera]

She needs an internet connection to use iMessage. It's that simple. When she is on wifi, she can iMessage. She can also FaceTime or Skype.

There was wifi at the hostels she stayed at during her last overseas trip. As I mentioned above, she could receive my iMessages, but not send replies to me. We eventually had to use a different messaging app to talk, but we prefer iMessage.

 

[GGJstudios]

There was wifi at the hostels she stayed at during her last overseas trip. As I mentioned above, she could receive my iMessages, but not send replies to me. We eventually had to use a different messaging app to talk, but we prefer iMessage.

I can't think of any reason she wouldn't be able to reply if she received iMessages from you. Did that happen at multiple hostels, or just one? Did she try other Wi-Fi hotspots?

If you can't get iMessage to work, you might look at Viber or Skype.

 

[kylera]

I can't think of any reason she wouldn't be able to reply if she received iMessages from you. Did that happen at multiple hostels, or just one? Did she try other Wi-Fi hotspots?

If you can't get iMessage to work, you might look at Viber or Skype.

We fiddled with our respective phones' options last night. I'm guessing it's because she only had my phone number, and not my email address connected to my Apple ID, and it's because of that that while there were no issues of us chatting when we were in the same country, there were issues of chatting when she went abroad. I noticed that I had her email address, which also was her Apple ID address. She had my email, but it wasn't my Apple ID.

I could be wrong, though.

 

[EmpyreanUK]

We fiddled with our respective phones' options last night. I'm guessing it's because she only had my phone number, and not my email address connected to my Apple ID, and it's because of that that while there were no issues of us chatting when we were in the same country, there were issues of chatting when she went abroad. I noticed that I had her email address, which also was her Apple ID address. She had my email, but it wasn't my Apple ID.

I could be wrong, though.

I think you may be on to something with this. Recently I went abroad and tried to iMessage somebody in that country using their phone number. From my home country, I've successfully sent and received iMessages to and from that phone number, but when I was in a foreign country, the message would fail every time. This person later sent me an iMessage using her Apple ID e-mail address, which I received successfully and was able to reply to.

I don't know if she iMessaged me at my phone number or e-mail address, so it could be that she sent the message to my e-mail address, which was then used as the reply-from entity. Either way, it would appear that there's some difficulty in using iMessage with phone numbers whilst abroad, it's just unclear as to whether it's with a phone number as the send-from, as the send-to, or perhaps both.

 

[kylera]

I think you may be on to something with this. Recently I went abroad and tried to iMessage somebody in that country using their phone number. From my home country, I've successfully sent and received iMessages to and from that phone number, but when I was in a foreign country, the message would fail every time. This person later sent me an iMessage using her Apple ID e-mail address, which I received successfully and was able to reply to.

I don't know if she iMessaged me at my phone number or e-mail address, so it could be that she sent the message to my e-mail address, which was then used as the reply-from entity. Either way, it would appear that there's some difficulty in using iMessage with phone numbers whilst abroad, it's just unclear as to whether it's with a phone number as the send-from, as the send-to, or perhaps both.

I think for people who travel abroad regularly, or also for people who use more than one Apple device and are capable of using iMessages from all of them, it may be a better idea to set it so you can start new conversations from your Apple ID instead of your cellular number.

The only thing is, I don't know how well that would work in the long term, but I do hope it's a lot better than having 2-3 different chat threads with the same bloody person.