SMS texting app (not iMessage) - is there one?

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crudmancrudman
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited September 2015

Wondering if anyone can assist me here...

 

BACKGROUND: I've got an iPhone 6 and my two daughters have an iPhone 4 and 5 respectively. For each of them I purchased an unlimited texting plan (within Canada), but no data.

 

PROBLEM: Since they don't have data, if I iMessage with them (either initiated by me or by them) and they're in a WIFI spot, the messages come through (blue bubbles, all good). However, as soon as they leave a WIFI spot, iMessage ceases to work until they reestablish a WIFI connection. iMessage will NOT revert to SMS. The only way we've been able to get this to work is to disable iMessage on their devices AND on mine (I have a data plan), which forces iMessage to send as SMS (not as an iMessage, but the texts appear within iMessage as green bubbles to indicate they are texts). As I understand things, this is just how it works if you have an iPhone with no data plan. So, to be specific, my actual problem is that I don't want to have iMessage disabled on my phone as I have other contacts with iPhones that try to message me and I don't get them on my phone (I'll get them on my iPad, but that's not with me at all times like my phone is). 

 

SOLUTION #1: Does anyone know how to actually make it work so that I can leave iMessage enabled on my phone and still receive/send SMS texts with my daughters (i.e. my phone would only send them SMS texts so that they can be received by them), but still use iMessage with other contacts?

 

SOLUTION #2: Failing #1, since I've tried everything I can think of and have seen others online with the same experience, is there a simple SMS Texting app out there that I could use with my daughters (install it on their phones and my phone) so I can then use iMessage with other contacts? I know there are "messaging" apps out there, but the vast majority (if not all) of those use data, so they don't work for my situation. I know there are also "free texting" apps out there which assign you a phone number and go through a mail service converting to SMS - that doesn't work either as, in order to go through the mail service, it's needs data/WIFI. What I want is an app, like iMessage, that would use my cell number and my carrier's SMS texting capability, to send SMS texts. It seems simple, and it should be, but I can't find any apps out there to do this...which seems...odd.

 

Any help would be appreciated!

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 5
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,747member
    In the Messages preferences in iOS, the fourth setting from the top is one to explicitly force iMessages to fallback to SMS, should the iMessage time out.

    This has consistently worked for me, for years.
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  • Reply 2 of 5
    crudmancrudman Posts: 56member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by spheric View Post



    In the Messages preferences in iOS, the fourth setting from the top is one to explicitly force iMessages to fallback to SMS, should the iMessage time out.



    This has consistently worked for me, for years.

    Thanks spheric...I've tried this, but unfortunately doesn't seem to work for me. In digging in further, I see that under "You can be reached by iMessage at" my phone number is there (but disabled and has a spinning wheel like it's thinking), but my phone number is NOT in the “Start new conversations from” list. Think this could have something to do with it?

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  • Reply 3 of 5
    crowleycrowley Posts: 10,453member
    I've always had issues with this.  In some ways it's great that iMessage and SMS are integrated like this, but it does create some issues.  If I'm out of cellular data range, I don't get messages, and I've not managed to find anything that I can do about it.  And my sister, who doesn't have a data plan, just wi-fi, won't receive messages until she gets a wi-fi signal.  The SMS fallback is on for both of us.  Fortunately, neither of these situations is common or long lasting enough that it's ever been too much of a problem, but it can be an irritation.

    Guess I'll just wait for ubiquitous wi-fi.

    Sorry that isn't much help.
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  • Reply 4 of 5
    SpamSandwichspamsandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Incidentally, there's a free cross-platform messaging app called Telegram available which sends encrypted messages. Folks may be interested in checking out this app (also works on desktop).
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  • Reply 5 of 5
    crudmancrudman Posts: 56member

    No worries, Crowley, I hear you. I'm still playing with it and will see if I can manage to get anything of note working. My option #2 above would work (a simple SMS-only app that uses my cellular/texting plan), so doesn't one exist that I can find? Seems simple...maybe too simple? Who feels like writing an app to do this? :) 

     

    Unfortunately I think ubiquitous WIFI is a few years out yet...and by "few" I mean "at least 5". With Canada lagging behind as usual...

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