iMessaging from Apple ID to Apple ID on iPhones - no "Send as Text" option?

[soulsteelgray]

One of my friends recently got an iPad and we decided to start iMessaging using only our Apple IDs to keep our conversation synced across our iPhones and iPads. I tried sending her an iMessage using my iPhone to her Apple ID this morning under the assumption that if it wasn't able to send, it would automatically send as a text message because her phone number is in my contacts. However, this didn't happen, and I'm not given the option to send it as a text message.

On an iPhone, are you only given the "Send as Text Message" popup if you're sending an iMessage to a phone number and not an Apple ID?

 

[CosmoPilot]

This is one of the shortcomings of iMessage. If you are sending to an iPad, you have to use the email address associated with that iPad. iMessage is not designed to make this decision for you. The main reason:

1.) Users (receiver of message) may not pay for texting usage. Therefore, Apple isn't going to force an SMS to a random cell phone number in your contact list just because that contact also has iMessage capability.


To solve, have your friend get an iPhone. Send all iMessages to the email address. It will come across the iPad and iPhone (iPhones have to have data) so you can carry on a conversation between devices.

 

[soulsteelgray]

She does have an iPhone. She regularly turns her data off in order to conserve her 300 MB limit as much as she can for the billing cycle, so prior to her iPad purchase, I would just force the iMessage through as a text if I really needed the message to go through ASAP. I was operating under the assumption that iMessage would try to send a text to her phone number if I tried to send her an iMessage to her Apple ID because both the phone number and Apple ID are linked to iMessage, but I guess not.

I suppose I just need to iMessage her phone number and force it to send as a text like before while maintaining a separate thread for less vital messages that can be synced across devices. Quite troublesome no thanks to Apple, but I guess this is what I signed up for.

 

[CosmoPilot]

iMessage data is so small, there is no way she'd use all her data (300MB) if she texted all day long for a month. A simple SMS uses little to no data per text.

If she wants to limit data, just don't surf the internet, set emails to manually retrieve, etc.

Send all iMessages to her email address. They will go to her phone and iPad.

If you just send to the phone number, if data isn't available (your end or hers), it will send an SMS to the phone number (unless you tell iMessage in Settings to not send as an SMS).

Cosmo

 

[soulsteelgray]

She routinely comes within a hairline's width of reaching her cap every month. Ha ha. She disables her data to remove the temptation of hopping on Facebook or using Pandora or whatever else she does to rack up her data usage so quickly. Enabling data just to check iMessage leads to checking Facebook, which leads to looking at photos, which leads to so on and so forth. I've already implemented every single data-saving step I can on her phone and yet it comes justhatclose to going over 300 MB every month.

Disabling data entirely is just her way of saving it for a time when she actually needs it, like say she's lost and there's no Wi-Fi around for miles, and so she can control her impulses.