Is there an advantage of iMessage if...

[drlwb]

...you already have unlimited texting?

 

[paul-c]

Not that I can think of. But I think it's pretty nice to be able to see that an iMessage was delivered, and notified that someone is typing back a response.

 

[Peligro911]

It's faster

 

[DenatureX]

You have the ability to send a text to an iPod or an iPad.

 

[Snownation]

Some plans like mine don't have unlimited MMSing. iMessage makes it so I can send images for free.

 

[Tillsworth]

Yeah basically what everyone's already said. Delivery/read receipts, ability to send free MMS it's quicker and you can see when your contact is typing.

 

[Cheggy]

It wastes your data plan

 

[KashSystems]

It wastes your data plan

If you are not sending pictures/video through Imessage, just text, 7500 text messages = about 1 megabyte. Meaning if you are on the 200 mb plan you would have to send 150000 text messages to use 10 percent of your data.

 

[SK1]

...you already have unlimited texting?

My unlimited messaging does not cover international SMS. With iMessage, I was able to text my friends in England and Hong Kong at no extra cost to me or them. That's an advantage for us.

 

[Alli]

My unlimited messaging does not cover international SMS. With iMessage, I was able to text my friends in England and Hong Kong at no extra cost to me or them. That's an advantage for us.

That's the way I looked at it the other day when I was finally able to just use plain iMessage to chat with Chris Oldroyd instead of our usual marathon emails. I may go find some of my old friends abroad just so we can text now!

 

[lush242000]

the obvious? you can be on wifi and send imessages but you can not with sms. with sms you have to have carrier signal.

 

[Dazzx]

It's cheaper then MMS !


@dazzx - Twitter
Darren Thompson -G+

 

[MikeC14]

If you are not sending pictures/video through Imessage, just text, 7500 text messages = about 1 megabyte. Meaning if you are on the 200 mb plan you would have to send 150000 text messages to use 10 percent of your data.

Not doubting you but would be interested to know where these figures came from as I have been looking for these.

I have wondered what impact iMessage would have on my data plan as I have unlimited texts. If the figures are accurate then there is no real impact.

 

[verwon]

I've also had the issue of fees for international texts, being as the person I'm closest to is in Canada, so for the past few years, we've been sending tons of emails back and forth. Finally, we can just use iMessage, without worrying about it.


Sent from my iOS ecosystem!

 

[Steve28]

Not doubting you but would be interested to know where these figures came from as I have been looking for these.

I have wondered what impact iMessage would have on my data plan as I have unlimited texts. If the figures are accurate then there is no real impact.

You can do the math yourself. 1 character is one byte. So if you have a 200MB plan (200,000,000 bytes), then you could send about 1.3 million 160-character text messages. So to even use 10% of the plan, you'd have to send 130,000 text messages. So yeah, no real impact.

 

[jakej914]

International texts, quicker delivery, read receipts, typing indicators. Best of all, you can be just a little less dependent on your carrier's overpriced texting plans!

 

[MikeC14]

You can do the math yourself. 1 character is one byte. So if you have a 200MB plan (200,000,000 bytes), then you could send about 1.3 million 160-character text messages. So to even use 10% of the plan, you'd have to send 130,000 text messages. So yeah, no real impact.

Nicely explained

 

[AStranger]

...you already have unlimited texting?

One benefit for me is that we might just be able to get rid of unlimited texting and save $$ - which is essentially implied by some prior comments.

Much of my family uses the iphone and hence the vast majority of my messages would be through imessage and hence we'd love to save the money from getting rid of unlimited texting.

 

[TOASTIE]

can someone explain the read receipts bit ? what's different to a text ? cheers d

 

[AStranger]

can someone explain the read receipts bit ? what's different to a text ? cheers d

If you send a text message it tells you that it was successfully sent though the system but you don't get any notice if the user even got it. My wife has sent me text messages that showed that she sent them but got to me 12 hours later.

With iMessage it tells you that the message was delivered - i.e it reached the phone of the recipient and optionally if they read it, meaning that it go to the phone and they opened the messages app since.

You can turn sending read receipts on/off and I think it is off by default.