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Switched to android from iOS, immediately miss imessage :(

Kinokou

Member
If you have WiFi or any Internet your good. iMessage will work.

I got that, but will it never sms an iPhone if the owner went off the internet grid? And will the bubble change color in that case to indicate sms? Or is it just delivery failure or on hold?
 
Why not, it would be a really easy fix to this entire situation.

Persuade your family to just install it, it's not as if it costs an arm and a leg.

It's not "really easy", though.

I have WhatsApp installed on my iPhone. I talk to one friend in Canada with it, nobody else was interested in using it, and even my Canadian friend and I have moved to Facebook Messenger to keep in touch.

It's not just persuading your family to install it. It's persuading my parents and my wife's parents to use it, who barely understand texting as it is. It's persuading them to remember to text me (and only me) using WhatsApp and everyone else using Messages. It's explaining to them why WhatsApp is a "better" solution, and if it's so much better, why does her church group use the other thing, which works just as well?

It's not just getting your friends and family to use WhatsApp. It's getting your friends and family's friends and family to use it. And that's a tough hill to climb when Messages is right there, default, and works great out of the box. I really don't understand why this is so confusing.

GAF is in it's bubble again. I guarantee you most users don't see or understand the difference between WhatsApp, Messages, Facebook Messenger, or SMS. They use what's right in front of them.

Yes, it's just the messages app. Two people texting back and forth who both have iPhones will initiate iMessage (blue bubbles), and if you're communicating with someone on an android, it will be SMS (green bubbles)

That's extremely reductive.
 

VeeP

Member
I got that, but will it never sms an iPhone if the owner went off the internet grid? And will the bubble change color in that case to indicate sms? Or is it just delivery failure or on hold?

I must’ve misunderstood your original message, I thought you said roaming off but WiFi on? Either way:

Any internet: iMessage works

No internet: iMessage will fail and depending on your settings iMessage will automatically change to sms and turn green, or it will give you an option to send as a SMS. If you send as a SMS it’ll be green to indicate to you AND the person your talking to you sent it as a text.

Hopefully that was clear enough.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
The What's App posts always get me too. Saying "why don't US folks use what's app? Is like me asking why you aren't using Facebook Messenger or Google Hangouts. Heck, messenger is built right into Facebook even.
 

Kinokou

Member
I must’ve misunderstood your original message, I thought you said roaming off but WiFi on? Either way:

Any internet: iMessage works

No internet: iMessage will fail and depending on your settings iMessage will automatically change to sms and turn green, or it will give you an option to send as a SMS. If you send as a SMS it’ll be green to indicate to you AND the person your talking to you sent it as a text.
0
Hopefully that was clear enough.

Yes, thank you.
 

RedShift

Member
The What's App posts always get me too. Saying "why don't US folks use what's app? Is like me asking why you aren't using Facebook Messenger or Google Hangouts. Heck, messenger is built right into Facebook even.

It's not so much 'why don't you guys use WhatsApp' as why don't you guys use any messaging app that works on all platforms including PC?

Facebook and Hangouts are also better than iMessage.
 
Everyone is on facebook... so why not just use facebook messenger?

More on point, I use facebook messenger lite because it doesn't drain the battery as much.
 
What really boggles me is that people care.

I use hangouts when people contact me with hangouts.

I use FB Messenger when I want to group chat.

I use text (Textra, but default would be fine) for those people who text me.

And I have them all installed and don't care.

I don't think I'd miss any particular one as long as I could contact people and send links and pics.

I guess in cases where texts aren't free I'd care, but it sounds like everywhere that's true uses WhatsApp.

And what's the green bubble thing? How iMessage marks a non-iMessage user? Is that solely for the stigma?
 

entremet

Member
It's not "really easy", though.

I have WhatsApp installed on my iPhone. I talk to one friend in Canada with it, nobody else was interested in using it, and even my Canadian friend and I have moved to Facebook Messenger to keep in touch.

It's not just persuading your family to install it. It's persuading my parents and my wife's parents to use it, who barely understand texting as it is. It's persuading them to remember to text me (and only me) using WhatsApp and everyone else using Messages. It's explaining to them why WhatsApp is a "better" solution, and if it's so much better, why does her church group use the other thing, which works just as well?

It's not just getting your friends and family to use WhatsApp. It's getting your friends and family's friends and family to use it. And that's a tough hill to climb when Messages is right there, default, and works great out of the box. I really don't understand why this is so confusing.

GAF is in it's bubble again. I guarantee you most users don't see or understand the difference between WhatsApp, Messages, Facebook Messenger, or SMS. They use what's right in front of them.



That's extremely reductive.

Exactly. We're a very tech-centric group and it's sometimes hard to understand that some people don't want to install anything on their phones. They go with the default and for iPhones that's iMessage, which also covers SMS.

Not everyone cares about GIFs, pics, encryption and so on. C'mon, guys lol. Put yourself in other's shoes.
 
The features of iMessages are now being described, and it has become apparent to me that it incorporates SMS integration. Please correct me if I've misunderstood.

So what's to stop the original poster simply texting their friends and family who have an Apple phone? The message will show up in iMessages. Presumably any replies from those friends would appear as SMS. I like a system that degrades gracefully.
 

Deadly Cyclone

Pride of Iowa State
It's not so much 'why don't you guys use WhatsApp' as why don't you guys use any messaging app that works on all platforms including PC?

Facebook and Hangouts are also better than iMessage.

Yeah. I think people just use whatever platform their friends and family are on. Non-tech people in my family use text message mostly, and by default, that's imessage on iphone. My friends mostly use Facebook Messenger, and my gaming buddies use Hangouts.

I'd love everyone to switch to one (Whatsapp or any of them) but not everyone uses the same thing.
 

Pagusas

Elden Member
And what's the green bubble thing? How iMessage marks a non-iMessage user? Is that solely for the stigma?

When you use imessage, if both you and your contact are on imessage the text bubble will be blue, signifying all imessage features will work, like read reciepts, typing alerts, high quality image and videos, ect.

If the message bubble is green, that means imessage is in sms/text mode because either your contact isnt on imessage or one of you doesnt have data coverage.

Its a helpful thing, not a stigma (or at least not intended as one). If i'm texting my wife and suddenly i see the bubbles change green, that means my message failed to send as an imessage and revered to the fallback text mode, meaning I (or more than often my wife) has lost data covereage and thus will receive the message through the regular voice network. Her building she works in is pretty terrible for reception regarding the data network.
 

ty_hot

Member
The features of iMessages are now being described, and it has become apparent to me that it incorporates SMS integration. Please correct me if I've misunderstood.

So what's to stop the original poster simply texting their friends and family who have an Apple phone? The message will show up in iMessages. Presumably any replies from those friends would appear as SMS. I like a system that degrades gracefully.
Because SMS is so 1990s. People want to send photos and so on.
 

jts

...hate me...
But it seems like whatsapp is universally accepted in Europe/places outside of the US?

It's not. It's very big but at a very minimum level, Facebook Messenger is also a very used alternative by almost everyone who has as Facebook account. Which as you can imagine it's a lot of people.
 
Exactly. We're a very tech-centric group and it's sometimes hard to understand that some people don't want to install anything on their phones.

Surely you have it reversed. Being tech-savvy surely makes us _less_ willing to install any old locked-in bloatware when we already have SMTP/IMAP/POP and SMS.
 

Jeremy

Member
The features of iMessages are now being described, and it has become apparent to me that it incorporates SMS integration. Please correct me if I've misunderstood.

So what's to stop the original poster simply texting their friends and family who have an Apple phone? The message will show up in iMessages. Presumably any replies from those friends would appear as SMS. I like a system that degrades gracefully.

Nothing is stopping them besides the fact that they're probably considerate and trying to send one message instead of ten texts that sometimes come in random order with no indication of the order they were sent.
 
The features of iMessages are now being described, and it has become apparent to me that it incorporates SMS integration. Please correct me if I've misunderstood.

So what's to stop the original poster simply texting their friends and family who have an Apple phone? The message will show up in iMessages. Presumably any replies from those friends would appear as SMS. I like a system that degrades gracefully.
If they add him the entire group chat turns to SMS I believe. Which makes the whole mms and SMS experience worse for everyone.
 

entremet

Member
Surely you have it reversed. Being tech-savvy surely makes us _less_ willing to install any old locked-in bloatware when we already have SMTP/IMAP/POP and SMS.

You don't install imessage, though. It's already there. Defaults are rather powerful for adoption. See MS killing Netscape with IE.
 
The features of iMessages are now being described, and it has become apparent to me that it incorporates SMS integration. Please correct me if I've misunderstood.

So what's to stop the original poster simply texting their friends and family who have an Apple phone? The message will show up in iMessages. Presumably any replies from those friends would appear as SMS. I like a system that degrades gracefully.

Yes the reason people use iMessage in the US is because it integrates with sms/mms which makes it so you can message anyone with it since sms is the standard here. Anyone telling you the reason is because of higher quality of video or gifs is an infintesmal user base.
 
Nothing is stopping them besides the fact that they're probably considerate and trying to send one message instead of ten texts that sometimes come in random order with no indication of the order they were sent.

Then iMessages is broken. Why do people use it in preference to email or SMS?
 

Jeremy

Member
Then iMessages is broken. Why do people use it in preference to email or SMS?

It's not iMessage that's broken, it's that SMS messages are fucking technically outdated once it's forced to revert for others. I don't even know what you're trying to say anymore because you're more concerned with being right about something you obviously have never used than to actually read and comprehend.

if you need me to agree with you just to end this, sure, everyone should be using their email for these types of communications instead, such an amazing, obviously well thought out idea.
 

Vyer

Member
The features of iMessages are now being described, and it has become apparent to me that it incorporates SMS integration. Please correct me if I've misunderstood.

So what's to stop the original poster simply texting their friends and family who have an Apple phone? The message will show up in iMessages. Presumably any replies from those friends would appear as SMS. I like a system that degrades gracefully.

Funny gifs and videos over SMS is probably not very appealing to the OP
 
Yes the reason people use iMessage in the US is because it integrates with sms/mms which makes it so you can message anyone with it since sms is the standard here. Anyone telling you the reason is because of higher quality of video or gifs is an infintesmal user base.

There's literally no way for you to declare the majority of people love iMessage because it falls back to text when they don't have data and a unmeasurable small amount of people like it because it lets you send big files or has animation features. This is your opinion.

Then iMessages is broken. Why do people use it in preference to email or SMS?

iMessage works great for America which is why it is so successful here. Costs, criteria, and preferences vary around the world, that is fine. WhatsApp doesn't do everything that iMessage does and vice versa. It's not personal.
 

Jeremy

Member
You don't install imessage, though. It's already there. Defaults are rather powerful for adoption. See MS killing Netscape with IE.

That was rather my point: all systems support the standards I mentioned.

Do you think you can successfully argue any side with someone that thinks we should have ended all progress in regards to messaging with the introduction of 'SMTP/IMAP/POP and SMS'?
 

snacknuts

we all knew her
I really wish RCS would pick up steam so we could stop having these debates. Although I have a feeling Apple won't support it.
 

this_guy

Member
I really wish RCS would pick up steam so we could stop having these debates. Although I have a feeling Apple won't support it.

Hopefully by fourth quarter all the US carriers will make the switch to universal profile so there's intercarrier RCS. At least at that point android to android messaging will be nice, but Android to iPhone is still standard sms until Apple gets on board.
 
Do you think you can successfully argue any side with someone that thinks we should have ended all progress in regards to messaging with the introduction of 'SMTP/IMAP/POP and SMS'?

No, I would argue against that and would win. Those standards still exist, though, and if we lock ourselves into proprietary applications that do not support interoperability standards we end up with these pointless wrestling matches on forums, between two or more groups of people who have locked themselves into incompatible systems. There is nothing to be lost by avoiding the trap.
 

Kinokou

Member
Then iMessages is broken. Why do people use it in preference to email or SMS?

From what I have understood from this discussion iMessage is the default button on the home screen that will be used for messaging just like the regular sms app found on most androids (I assume, at least mine had one), but if you have data active it automatically prefers using data and gives a lot of additional features as long as you are sending to and from an online iPhone, if not it downgrades to regular sms.

I can certainly see the comfort of it if you are the kind of person to have a lot of phone numbers saved.

Can iMessages take contacts from other sources than your contact book?
 
I convinced my boyfriend to install Signal messenger, and that covers 90% of my messaging usecase right there. Signal has a great UI (on Android) and integrates nicely with sms, I can really recommend it!

With everyone else it's either fb messenger or whatsapp, where I would probably use the latter way way more if it didn't force those horrible emojis on me.
 

ZOONAMI

Junior Member
I guess I dont understand the problem with sms. Whatever protocol tmobile (sounds like rcs I guess?) is using let's me see if messages are received, I can even see typing in real time. Gifs, etc all supported with swift key on the default LG message app.
 

this_guy

Member
I guess I dont understand the problem with sms. Whatever protocol tmobile (sounds like rcs I guess?) is using let's me see if messages are received, I can even see typing in real time. Gifs, etc all supported with swift key on the default LG message app.

That's RCS, but only T-Mobile to T-Mobile messages are compatible. Once they switch over to the universal profile, which Google is spearheading, it will work with other carriers. Sprint is currently on the universal profile. T-Mobile has previously stated they will switch in the fourth quarter/by the end of the year. AT&T and Verizon are also on board but I can't recall an e.t.a.
 

M3d10n

Member
I convinced my boyfriend to install Signal messenger, and that covers 90% of my messaging usecase right there. Signal has a great UI (on Android) and integrates nicely with sms, I can really recommend it!

With everyone else it's either fb messenger or whatsapp, where I would probably use the latter way way more if it didn't force those horrible emojis on me.

Those are the iOS emojis, lol.
 

M3d10n

Member
That's RCS, but only T-Mobile to T-Mobile messages are compatible. Once they switch over to the universal profile, which Google is spearheading, it will work with other carriers. Sprint is currently on the universal profile. T-Mobile has previously stated they will switch in the fourth quarter/by the end of the year. AT&T and Verizon are also on board but I can't recall an e.t.a.

The ETA is "never". RCS will never catch on. There's no going back from OTT.
 

Firestorm

Member
Maybe Canada didn't go as hard into iMessage as I'm seeing in this thread because people already knew how stupid it is to use a single-ecosystem messaging platform after BBM. Facebook Messenger is by far my most used platform though I have one friend group that uses Hangouts and I know WhatsApp is pretty popular but not too much in my social circles.

I only use iMessage with my parents.
 

Kinokou

Member
RCS is that the same as Android Messages app? I know next to nothing about both of these.

But it seems Android Messages is getting introduced under the name SMS+ by one of the big network carriers in Norway. Their description of SMS+ reads just like what I learned about iMessage from this thread by acting as an advanced chat using data with a regular sms as a fallback.
 

finalflame

Member
Because iMessage is fluid and slick whilst pretty much all other rich messaging solutions are fucking trash. Let's not even get anywhere near SMS and how shitty it is.

iMessage is probably one the biggest reasons most users won't ever switch off iOS.
 

diaspora

Member
Because iMessage is fluid and slick whilst pretty much all other rich messaging solutions are fucking trash. Let's not even get anywhere near SMS and how shitty it is.

iMessage is probably one the biggest reasons most users won't ever switch off iOS.

WhatsApp is objectively superior to iMessage though. The only feature WhatsApp does have is... SMS integration which is the most asinine and archaic thing to want.
 
I had to google what "imessage" is, wow what great solution to message people who can afford expensive phones :p

Thank god, I have only known Whatsapp! It just works and is very easy to use.

One minor bug I have with it, happened only once to me/family, but you needed to open the app for it to "wake" and check for new messages.
 
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