Why would anybody turn off iMessage?

[sakau2007]

One reason I can think of disabling iMessage...

If you don't want people to know you are typing a reply.

Seems odd, but it is possible.


I would like to have the ability to disable iMessaging for certain contacts. Sometimes I don't want to respond to my family right then and there, but I wouldn't mind sending my friends read receipts. So I'd like to be able to disable iMessage for my family, but then enable read receipts for iMessage. As it is now, I have read receipts disabled.

 

[AlphaVictor87]

The only annoyance i have with iMessage is that when people are in a bad reception area, iMessages likes to re-send the message.

So it'll initially switch to sms because they are in bad service for a second, then they will get back into good signal and iMessage will decide to send it again as an imessage.

Lol this just happened as i was typing this response actually.

 

[netnothing]

Yes, but while on a call on a CDMA iPhone, each iMessage is sent with a 5 minute delay. I've tested this exhaustively. If after 5 minutes, the message does not send, the message is automatically converted to SMS and then you will receive it while on the call.

This does however make it impossible to carry on a text conversation with someone while on the phone (i.e. while on a conference call and not actively engaging in conversation) since each message tries to send as an iMessage before reverting to SMS after 5 minutes. Therefore, I've disabled iMessage on my CDMA Verizon iPhone so that I get my messages as texts without any delay. Personal choice.

This isn't true. Just tested this with my buddy on his 4S on Verizon.

It's true you get a 5 minute delay......on the first initial message sent.

1) Verizon user talking on the iPhone, WiFi OFF.

2) Me on my iPhone sends a text message to him. It defaults to iMessage because we are both on iOS5.

3) The message gets sent, but I don't get a delivered notice. The message just sits there in a blue bubble.

4) Verizon user doesn't get the message.

5) 5 minutes pass, I'm assuming Apple's servers sent a signal back to my phone, to resend the message as regular SMS. My sent bubble for that message turns to green and under it lists: Sent as Text Message

6) Verizon user gets it immediately and responds back.

7) I get that text on my phone and respond back to him.

8) Verizon user gets it immediately.

9) We text back and forth in real time, however now using SMS.

Basically, once the text was resent as SMS, and they responded back.....our conversation switched to SMS messaging. The Messaging app kept us on SMS, it didn't try to switch back to iMessage.

Once I had him turn his WiFi back on.....the next message sent automatically switched back to iMessage.

So the biggest downside for Verizon users is the initial 5 minute delay.

Here's hoping Apple reduces that down to 2 minutes or so.

-Kevin

 

[redscull]

iMessage is too expensive.

I have unlimited texts. Sure, I pay $30 a month for that, but that means the more SMS and MMS everyone on my family plan sends (and it's a lot), the cheaper they get per message.

iMessage uses my data plans. I don't have unlimited of that. MMSs would start to each through my data plans really quickly and end up forcing me to upgrade to higher data plans. That's stupid and would cost too much, especially since it's completely illogical to get rid of my unlimited texting plan until every last person on Earth is also using iMessage.

 

[sn]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

I have iMessage off because I have unlimited texts.

 

[C N Reilly]

Two reasons

1. I'm already on AT&T's family unlimited text plan. So SMS limits/cost aren't an issue. Plus I don't know anybody that doesn't have an SMS-enabled cell phone anyway.

2. (And far more important) One of my email addresses is of a very common name; let's just say I lucked into getting in on Gmail when it was still early alpha. So I'm continuously getting email not meant for me (I'd estimate four or five per day), and now I've started getting iMessages meant for other people as well. And since those are literally the only iMessages I get ... I've flipped the off switch.

I've turned off FaceTime for the same reason. After the first five bizarre incoming FaceTime calls, two of which were apparently intended as gay video masturbation chats*, that off switch got flicked as well.

*NTTAWWT, but I was at work at the time of both of them.

 

[jkozlow3]

This isn't true. Just tested this with my buddy on his 4S on Verizon.

It's true you get a 5 minute delay......on the first initial message sent.

1) Verizon user talking on the iPhone, WiFi OFF.

2) Me on my iPhone sends a text message to him. It defaults to iMessage because we are both on iOS5.

3) The message gets sent, but I don't get a delivered notice. The message just sits there in a blue bubble.

4) Verizon user doesn't get the message.

5) 5 minutes pass, I'm assuming Apple's servers sent a signal back to my phone, to resend the message as regular SMS. My sent bubble for that message turns to green and under it lists: Sent as Text Message

6) Verizon user gets it immediately and responds back.

7) I get that text on my phone and respond back to him.

8) Verizon user gets it immediately.

9) We text back and forth in real time, however now using SMS.

Basically, once the text was resent as SMS, and they responded back.....our conversation switched to SMS messaging. The Messaging app kept us on SMS, it didn't try to switch back to iMessage.

Once I had him turn his WiFi back on.....the next message sent automatically switched back to iMessage.

So the biggest downside for Verizon users is the initial 5 minute delay.

Here's hoping Apple reduces that down to 2 minutes or so.

-Kevin

Interesting. When I tested this with my sister the other day EVERY message she sent me was received with a 5 minute delay when I was on a call. I wonder why our experiences were different? I'll have to repeat the test again I guess.

 

[Tinmania]

Interesting. When I tested this with my sister the other day EVERY message she sent me was received with a 5 minute delay when I was on a call. I wonder why our experiences were different? I'll have to repeat the test again I guess.

Either way any delay is unacceptable IMO.

And it seems to illustrate an issue with the iPhone that has always bothered me: it is utterly unaware it does not have a valid Internet connection.

This is particularly annoying when it switches from a perfectly good 3G signal to WiFi that uses a captive portal in order to work. So I could be driving in town, listening to streaming radio without issue, then just happen to drive past a coffee shop that I had visited before. Zap! Goodbye streaming radio as there is no internet without agreeing to whatever the captive portal wants me to agree to.

Conversely it seems to hang onto WiFi when clearly out of range--and once again anything needing a data connection must wait.

All that said iMessage should "know" when it is unable to contact its servers and at that point immediately use SMS. Or in the case of being on an active CDMA phone call how about just assuming no data and switch right to SMS. But to time out waiting for data just seems inefficient. I can see the logic in that many calls may be nearing completion so a short delay means using data and not a text--but that should be a user option.


Michael

 

[netnothing]

Interesting. When I tested this with my sister the other day EVERY message she sent me was received with a 5 minute delay when I was on a call. I wonder why our experiences were different? I'll have to repeat the test again I guess.

Let us know if it's different for you the next time you try. Granted, my test was just the one time so far.

Curious....with your test.....did you start a NEW texting thread? Or continue one you already had going? For my test, I continued a thread from the day before.

Either way any delay is unacceptable IMO.

All that said iMessage should "know" when it is unable to contact its servers and at that point immediately use SMS. Or in the case of being on an active CDMA phone call how about just assuming no data and switch right to SMS. But to time out waiting for data just seems inefficient. I can see the logic in that many calls may be nearing completion so a short delay means using data and not a text--but that should be a user option.


Michael

I tend to agree. iMessage servers should be more aggressive. There really shouldn't be a 5 minute delay.

-Kevin

 

[Lukeyy19]

There may be people out there using an iPhone with a pay-as-you-go plan, apple have just tied to cater to any possibility, I'm not sure why you are complaining about having the ability to turn something on or off, how is that ever a bad thing?

i think there would be more complaints if you couldn't turn it off.

 

[lfc]

iMessage is too expensive.

I have unlimited texts. Sure, I pay $30 a month for that, but that means the more SMS and MMS everyone on my family plan sends (and it's a lot), the cheaper they get per message.

iMessage uses my data plans. I don't have unlimited of that. MMSs would start to each through my data plans really quickly and end up forcing me to upgrade to higher data plans. That's stupid and would cost too much, especially since it's completely illogical to get rid of my unlimited texting plan until every last person on Earth is also using iMessage.

A standard 160 character iMessage takes up 1 kilobyte (rounded up and based on my testing). It takes 1024 kilobytes to make one megabyte. It would take 4096 iMessages to make one megabyte. In Australia, Optus charges 25 cents per megabyte. That's cheap.

MMS? That's another story. Depends on how much you use it + the file size of the content. Also depends on whether iMessage compresses data before it sends it or not. If so, that would reduce file size a lot, but I have no idea if it does that.
Even then, most iPhone plans come with 100MB (or some amount) of data as standard anyway which should be more than enough to cover all MMS usage for a month.

 

[Thetonyk123]

I don't use it

 

[Annerz]

One reason I can think of disabling iMessage...

If you don't want people to know you are typing a reply.

Seems odd, but it is possible.


I would like to have the ability to disable iMessaging for certain contacts. Sometimes I don't want to respond to my family right then and there, but I wouldn't mind sending my friends read receipts. So I'd like to be able to disable iMessage for my family, but then enable read receipts for iMessage. As it is now, I have read receipts disabled.

True. I don't mind it though, reminds me of iChat. and it lets you know who else has an iPhone

 

[Primejimbo]

Interesting. When I tested this with my sister the other day EVERY message she sent me was received with a 5 minute delay when I was on a call. I wonder why our experiences were different? I'll have to repeat the test again I guess.

I doubt it it's iMessage doing this. Text messages are not a reliable means for talking. I sent texts before and people didn't get them for hours at times, and this is on when I had Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-mobile also. It's probably just the area.

 

[kolax]

• I'm part of a group iMessage with my friends and can't opt out of that group conversation.
  
• iMessage will try to send over GPRS, but fail, and can take 5 minutes to finally send as a text message.
  
• If I only have GPRS signal, I don't usually get iMessages until I'm on 3G or WiFi. My GPRS speeds are very poor.
  
• You can't chose to send an iMessage as a text message before you hit the send button. If the iMessage is failing because you only have GPRS signal, you can't chose to send it as a text message when the "sending" bar is still present.

iMessage is great, the group conversation is great too, but would be nice to be able to decide not be notified of an iMessage in a group convo (i.e. badge count goes up, but my phone doesn't vibrate/sound and I get no notification). Also, the ability to chose to send it as a text message before it has been sent would be nice.

.

 

[stev3n]

The service where I live is pretty bad so I use iMessage to talk to people since text's don't go through.

 

[steve-p]

It's not an Apple-only world so I use WhatsApp and just don't need iMessage.

 

[Kadman]

I'm turning off iMessage for myself and my son today (we're on AT&T). His girlfriend lives in an area where data coverage is somewhat challenging. Here's the funny thing, I even had him connect to their WiFi and iMessage gives us strange delays at times (but not all the time).

At the end of the day, I don't care what technology is used to deliver the message. What's more important is that it's delivered in a timely fashion. I'm just not getting that with iMessage. I guess it's possible that they could improve the logic that decides which way to send a message, but until then I'll stick with the tried and true SMS technology.

 

[wannabelean]

The only thing left is making a imessage contact list, a status update feature and a display picture like kinda thing coz its most important for mobile social networking. I know 100s of friends who just use bbm to see what display picture and status update their friends have. Its kinda addictive.

 

[netnothing]

iOS 5: Send as SMS without waiting for iMessage timeout

Found this today:

iOS 5: Send as SMS without waiting for iMessage timeout
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20111021030654439

If you're using an iPhone with iOS 5 to send a text message to another iOS 5 iPhone user and you have iMessage enabled, the phone will always attempt to send your text as an iMessage in the first instance. If your recipient doesn't have a data connection, it will eventually timeout and the iPhone will send your text as a regular SMS/MMS message.

If, however, you already know that the recipient doesn't have a data connection, you can force the iPhone to send it as an SMS immediately without having to disable iMessage.

Compose your iMessage as normal and hit send. Then immediately tap and hold on the sent message; a small bubble will pop up with the option to 'Send as Text Message.' The iMessage will immediately be cancelled and your text will be sent over the regular SMS/MMS cell network.

-Kevin

 

[kolax]

Found this today:

iOS 5: Send as SMS without waiting for iMessage timeout
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20111021030654439



-Kevin

There's still the problem of if you are the one with a bad data connection and you send an iMessage, it'll go on sending for about 5 minutes before timing out. Try it..

 

[tivoboy]

good tip

Found this today:

iOS 5: Send as SMS without waiting for iMessage timeout
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20111021030654439




-Kevin

good tip, I don't know how often it will be used but neat

 

[netnothing]

good tip, I don't know how often it will be used but neat

I see myself using it if I'm trying to message my buddy on Verizon. Since iMessage shows you if a message has been delivered.......I'll know my buddy is on the phone and can't get an iMessage if after 20 seconds or so it doesn't show the Delivered text. Then I can just force it to go via SMS.

-Kevin

 

[tivoboy]

smarter

I see myself using it if I'm trying to message my buddy on Verizon. Since iMessage shows you if a message has been delivered.......I'll know my buddy is on the phone and can't get an iMessage if after 20 seconds or so it doesn't show the Delivered text. Then I can just force it to go via SMS.

-Kevin

I find imessage much smarter than that, it doesn't even show me imessage or the blue text boxes if the person isn't on an ios device.

 

[vitzr]

I don't understand what the benefit of turning off iMessage would be?

Because I have no use for it.

It's as simple as that.