Do your recipients have free texting?
You can message iPad and iPod touches
- Group texts/conversations
- Will work over WiFi when you have no reception
- May day be able to reply to iMessages via your Mac
.
All of these are good reasons and is why I canceled my text plan.
First, paying for text is absurd and is a total profit for cellular providers (I'll save this discussion for another day).
Second, other than having the Read/Delivered status it is identical to Text Messages, but the fact that its free and that I can save $20 a month is reason enough for me to say that iMessage is better.
iMessage works for me because 95% of the people in my family/friend circle that I communicate with all have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iOS 5, so when i canceled my text plan I didn't feel at all disconnected.
How do you text people who don't have an iPhone? So you just don't text that 5%? How do you text an iPod Touch not on wifi?
No charge to use it with someone in a different country.
I was very happy with iMessage for a while but after this then I'm going back to straight texting until Apple figures out a way to redirect iMessages to carrier text if it detects you're offline.
Here's a major problem I had with iMessage on a CDMA (sprint) device. With CDMA then iMessages dont come through if you're on the phone. The other day I was on a long call and missed a few important iMessages from my wife and they didnt come through until I hung up. I was very happy with iMessage for a while but after this then I'm going back to straight texting until Apple figures out a way to redirect iMessages to carrier text if it detects you're offline.
EDIT: Also, I have a question about video MMS to ATT. I sent a friend a video and when I saw it on her phone the quality was ridiculously poor and pixelated. Is that an ATT limitation because it doesnt happen when I send an MMS video to a sprint phone.
Threads like this will continue because it's still a half-baked offering. It's FAR from seamless functionality as a replacement for SMS. I'm interested in seeing what Apple does with it, and it works fine for some, but it really causes a lot of confusion for others.
What about texting is better than emailing?
(Other than somewhat faster)
I have unlimited data and texts on my plan. Does iMessage provide any advantages over texting?
How do I communicate with the 5% of people who don't have an iPhone or are not on WiFi (iPod touch), the old fashion way, I call them via the Phone.app
I don't carry conversations via Text Messages and I have a rule that if I reply more than 3 times and know the conversation is not over, I call the person to speak to them directly. Text Messages for me are simple "Hey, come outside I'm in front" or "Did you want pickles on your sandwich?"