Just got a nice shiny ipad 3. Wife has been away and been using the messages “app” on the ipad to “text” message her on her iphone.

But my ipad is wifi only, so does this mean it is a free text messaging service? When she replies her messages will come out of her message allowance on her iphone contract, but i dont have a contract on the ipad, but seem to be able to “text” message her from it?

imessage service

messages between iphone/ipod/ipad are free.

so why when i text my wife from my iphone to hers is it not free? or is it?

If its a blue bubble, it’s free.
If its a green bubble it’s paid for.

Thats clever eh?

http://asia.cnet.com/faq-whats-imessage-and-how-does-it-work-62211546.htm

Have you turned on iMessage on your iPhone? Go to your settings and check.

It’s great, my nephew can also make free video calls to me from his iTouch when he’s connected to wifi

organic355 – Member
so why when i text my wife from my iphone to hers is it not free? or is it?

only works on 3GS and later phones & devices (ipad/touch) that will run IOS 5

If its a blue bubble, it’s free.
If its a green bubble it’s paid for.

That.

If it “knows” the thing you are trying to send a message to is an iPad or iPhone (or Mac) then it will try to send the message by wifi (blue bubble) first, which is free.

On iPhones if it fails to send by wifi (or 3G) then it will re-send it automatically as a text message (green bubble). You can press on blue bubble to force it to resend them as green when you know the wifi isn’t going to work.

Even works with GRS and Edge just sometimes takes a couple of seconds to connect.

Love it, can text the kids on their iPods with no cost to me when they reply, and also as above can do FaceTime which is great if I’m away somewhere etc.

It’s not exactly free. It just uses data instead of sms.
Data for a message is 5/8 of F all, instead of 30¢ down here.
Apple appears to have screwed the telcos on our behalf.

It was born out of the popularity of apps like whats app and also BBM. Apple meerly followed (and did some really slick integration with SMS). So it was actually the internet that “screwed the telcos” on our behalf.

only free over wifi.

It’s linked to your itunes account NOT your phone/ipad/ipod which is why it works even when your device doesn’t have a SIM. You can also get it to work on your Mac

only free over wifi.

Free-ish over 3G. As kiwijohn says, it comes out of your data allowance when sent by 3g/GPRS/Edge, but given my data allowance is 1GB a month and an iMessage is probably a couple of kb at most, it is a tiny drop in the ocean.

It’s been a godsend for chatting with my g/f, often for a couple of hours an evening. Just changed my phone tarrif to a Simplicity £26 one, so I get unlimited phone calls. Toss-up which to use, now… 😀

People still pay for SMSes? How quaint.

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