How can I send text messages to former iMessage users?

[iMore Question]

I have several contacts that i have texted with that used to have iphones and now have samsung phones. When i text them or respond to their texts, my iphone 5s sends them as an imessage which they don't receive. How to i fix this?

 

[kataran]

It actually has to be fixed on there end

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

Hold down on the message and select "Send as text message."

 

[Jaguarr40]

Hold down on the message and select "Send as text message."

Can iMessage be turned off essentially sending as SMS just like if I,sent you an iMessage and it would not send it would go as an SMS or does iMessage have to be on and sent as you suggested. I would like to know this for myself anyway?
Thank you.

 

[kataran]

Can iMessage be turned off essentially sending as SMS just like if I,sent you an iMessage and it would not send it would go as an SMS or does iMessage have to be on and sent as you suggested. I would like to know this for myself anyway?
Thank you.

This is a good question I assume if you turn off iMessage it's for all your contacts you can't pick and choose if someone has iMessage turned on I just learned you can tap and change this I didn't know but the issue is still partly on the receiving end

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

From my experience, if you decide to try the step I described for someone who didn't manually turn off iMessage then your phone will essentially stay on SMS for that thread since it has determined that the phone you're trying to iMessage is "offline" so to speak.

If I turn my iPhone off and you try to send me an iMessage and your setting for "send as SMS" is switched off, it will never get delivered. Essentially the holding down and sending as a text message is the manual way. Once you do that and my phone continues to stay off then your thread will turn into a regular SMS thread until my phone is turned on again and connects to data. Same goes for if I'm in a dead data zone. It's the equivalent of turning off my phone or even putting my SIM card into a non-iMessage phone.

 

[BreakingKayfabe]

And I still maintain that the root of this problem is the fact that Apple decided to keep "Send as SMS" set to OFF by default when they pushed out the iOS 7 update. It was always ON by default when iMessage was introduced in iOS 5.

 

[scruffypig]

I have several contacts that i have texted with that used to have iphones and now have samsung phones. When i text them or respond to their texts, my iphone 5s sends them as an imessage which they don't receive. How to i fix this?

Go into your iPhone "Contacts" and for your former iPhone friends, select "Edit" and "Mobile" instead of "iPhone" for their phone number. Then save. This will change to sending that contact, a SMS instead of an iMessage. You will need to update each former iPhone user's contact info individually.

 

[Good OL MC]

And be sure to tell those friends who switched that they need to turn iMessage off on their old devices. Or call Apple if they can no longer do that.

And then tell Apple to make this an easier process.


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