Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iMessage works w/ phone number on all devices?

N

Nikefn2

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 7, 2011
174
25
Hey guys. I've been seeing on Twitter (definitely not the most reliable place) from different iOS device users that now instead of having iMessage work on all your devices through email, that it now can work through your phone number on your other devices (iPad and iPod).

Has anyone heard about this or know how I can enable this feature on my iPad too?

I don't have an iPad 2 that's 3G enabled so maybe that plays a factor too. It would be great if it was true but since I haven't really seen any confirmation, I figured I'd take to this forum.

Thanks!
 
If you go into Settings on iPhone and set iMessage to receive at email instead of you mobile phone number, it will work across all devices.

I use iMessage on my MB Air and iPhone and they pretty much stay in sync other than some quircks with it still being in beta on Mac.

My wife uses her iPad for iMessage all the time and it also stays in sync with her iPhone. When she gets an iMessage text, both the iPad and iPhone go off at the same time.
 
b-rad g said:
If you go into Settings on iPhone and set iMessage to receive at email instead of you mobile phone number, it will work across all devices.

I use iMessage on my MB Air and iPhone and they pretty much stay in sync other than some quircks with it still being in beta on Mac.

My wife uses her iPad for iMessage all the time and it also stays in sync with her iPhone. When she gets an iMessage text, both the iPad and iPhone go off at the same time.
Click to expand...

The only way it wont stay in sync is if others send it to you via imessage but to your cell number on your phone.
 
jmcgeejr said:
The only way it wont stay in sync is if others send it to you via imessage but to your cell number on your phone.
Click to expand...

so are you saying that if someone previously has your contact saved with your number and not your email, it will not send to your other iOS devices?
 
johnray10 said:
so are you saying that if someone previously has your contact saved with your number and not your email, it will not send to your other iOS devices?
Click to expand...

That is correct, and if you send them a new message with your caller ID set to your email it will show up as 2 different versions of "you" in their SMS list.
 
jmcgeejr said:
That is correct, and if you send them a new message with your caller ID set to your email it will show up as 2 different versions of "you" in their SMS list.
Click to expand...

that is kind of stupid imo. wish there was a way for iOS to automatically realize this. so the only way around having two "you" in the system is by telling people upfront to merge the contact? or how do you stop it from happening? what if they have the email you use for iMessage saved in your contact card as just an email?
 
jmcgeejr said:
That is correct, and if you send them a new message with your caller ID set to your email it will show up as 2 different versions of "you" in their SMS list.
Click to expand...

johnray10 said:
that is kind of stupid imo. wish there was a way for iOS to automatically realize this. so the only way around having two "you" in the system is by telling people upfront to merge the contact? or how do you stop it from happening? what if they have the email you use for iMessage saved in your contact card as just an email?
Click to expand...

Yes that is true but I've found that pretty much everyone that I have texted through iMessage on the Mac, then just use that conversation and it works fine.
 
I think there might be some automatic recognition going on. I got a friend's first iMessages only to my iPhone4. I checked my wifi-only iPad and they weren't there.

So I wrote one to this friend from my iPad. At first the contact show red with the exclamation point. They the blue circle appeared, did some grinding, and Lo! the friend's name turned blue and off went the iMessage. From that point on, all iMessages from this person showed up on both devices.

I DO have my ID set as my email, and messaging enabled to my phone and email. My friend has phone and email listed in my contact info, and I have both listed for him.
 
The problem with iMessage is that if someone starts a brand new conversation with you on their iPhone, it goes to your iPhone — and NEVER goes to your iPad or your Mac running Messages. That's because Apple doesn't give you a choice to only receive iMessages on your email address on the iPhone. You can't delete your number from iMessage on your iPhone; it's greyed out. So in order for Apple to have that seamless integration with all of their devices they need to make that piece happen.
 
Seems to work now!

I have been sending messages from my Mac and iPad to MOBILE PHONE numbers and it works perfectly!

Apple must have made some changes
 
Wirelessly posted

You can send to a phone number. The problem is, only the receiving party's phone will get the message. If you send to an email address, the receiving party's phone and iPad will get it.

The OP is saying he's heard you can now associate an iPad to a phone number as well. This I'm not sure of.
 
Yeah, if there were any changes I'd appreciate is someone detailed how. I don't suppose iCloud is automatically recognizing which devices are associated with an iTunes email, and are merging contacts accordingly that way?
 
Just wanted to mention something that I discovered. I use my iPhone, iPad, and computer (with Messages beta) for iMessage, but began to experience split conversations with people. The problem was that the iPad and computer were using one email address as their "Caller ID" (that's what it's termed in the settings for all devices), while my phone was using my phone number. All devices have the same email address to "receive at" but messages from the phone were fragmenting and weren't always syncing to my computer and iPad.

Changing the phone's message "caller ID" to the email address seems to have resolved that issue. Note that the phone had to be rebooted after changing the "caller ID" before it worked flawlessly.

The disappointing thing is that even though some of my contacts have both my phone number and email address associated with my contact information, it didn't combine the conversations. I'm not sure that all of my contacts had my email address entered before the conversations split, though.

DHagan4755 said:
The problem with iMessage is that if someone starts a brand new conversation with you on their iPhone, it goes to your iPhone — and NEVER goes to your iPad or your Mac running Messages. That's because Apple doesn't give you a choice to only receive iMessages on your email address on the iPhone. You can't delete your number from iMessage on your iPhone; it's greyed out. So in order for Apple to have that seamless integration with all of their devices they need to make that piece happen.
Click to expand...
This seems to have changed recently. Conversations that were previously only going to my iPhone began to sync to my computer and iPad starting yesterday or today.
 
I had same problem with my wife using her iMessage on her iPad 3 and I was receiving her messages under 2 names but no distinction between whichever was the iPad or her iPhone. What I did was delete her email on main contact and created another contacted with her name and "iPad" next to it so I know which device she is using. Kind of a pain if you ask me but I can't stand not knowing which device she is on and she doesn't like both of them going off when she gets a message lol.
 
I can see Apple tying your apple ID you use with iMessage to your phone number, providing a more seamless experience for iMEssage across your iPhone and other Apple devices.
 
Wirelessly posted

This is probably because you either initiated an iMessage from your Mac or iPad (email caller ID), and the other party responded to your message (email caller ID) hence it now goes to all devices (phone included).

Or, the party recognized you had iMessage and was smart enough to initiate a conversation via your iMessage email caller ID.
 
Nikefn2 said:
Hey guys. I've been seeing on Twitter (definitely not the most reliable place) from different iOS device users that now instead of having iMessage work on all your devices through email, that it now can work through your phone number on your other devices (iPad and iPod).

Has anyone heard about this or know how I can enable this feature on my iPad too?

I don't have an iPad 2 that's 3G enabled so maybe that plays a factor too. It would be great if it was true but since I haven't really seen any confirmation, I figured I'd take to this forum.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I can confirm that this works for me now!

Its great because before I had to send to an email address as the caller ID and this meant that if there was no data signal you didn't get the option to resend the message as an SMS. Now you get the best of both! :)
 
Not working for me, message sent to my cell number from another iPhone 4S, does not go to my iPad (3G but no data enabled for it) or my iMessage running on my mac mini. messages sent to my email do though.
 
jmcgeejr said:
Not working for me, message sent to my cell number from another iPhone 4S, does not go to my iPad (3G but no data enabled for it) or my iMessage running on my mac mini. messages sent to my email do though.
Click to expand...

Turn off iMessage on the device then turn it back on again. That fixed it for other members of my family.
 
It turns out I was wrong. It seemed like it was working but it wasn't.

The people I was sending iMessages to were getting 2 different conversation threads. 1 from the phone number (iPhone) and 1 from the email address (iPad and Mac).

So it's back to square one!

Changing the caller ID to email address would fix the problem however me and my contacts need to remember to send to that instead of the phone number, and when sending to email as the caller ID you don't get the option to resend the message as a text when there is no data signal.

I wish they would just merge iPhone and email caller ID so you get the best of both!

Back to just using my iPhone for iMessage at the moment :(
 
I can confirm they fixed it wonderfully in iOS 6 :)

Both the number and multiple emails can be registered for iMessage and Facetime on iPhone & iPad ... and even messaging has become almost instant (much like Whatsapp)

Working smoothly in Beta which makes me believe it would be excellent in Final ver !!
 
SanjeevRana said:
I can confirm they fixed it wonderfully in iOS 6 :)

Both the number and multiple emails can be registered for iMessage and Facetime on iPhone & iPad ... and even messaging has become almost instant (much like Whatsapp)

Working smoothly in Beta which makes me believe it would be excellent in Final ver !!
Click to expand...

Can you post any screen shots of the iMessage settings page please?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back