Is iMessage completely reliable for you?

[Eug]

Since I may be going back to iOS, I'm wondering about trying iMessage again. When I first used it, I found it unreliable so I dropped it completely and just stuck with SMS (and MMS). I have no specific need to have texts on my desktop, and I don't have my own iPad either. I would just use it on an iPhone. The advantage of iMessage though is increased flexibiity in message types. I'm not concerned about SMS and MMS message numbers though, since my plan and my wife's plan both include unlimited messaging.

However, I get the impression from the net it's still not as reliable as SMS. What's the experience been for you? As for MMS, it isn't universal, but it works on most phones these days.

P.S. I came across this amusing issue about iMessage.

Is anyone having this issue on iPhone 5? I am concerned and was thinking that someone I have begun dating ignored a text I sent thanking him (he's been a longtime friend who always replies to texts) and saying I'm looking forward to our next date. It went default as an iMessage. I think he also has a 5, but it may be a 4S...not sure. It shows as "delivered". i know you can turn off read receipts, so that isn't helpful not seeing if he read it or not.

I don't want to text again asking if he got the message in case he really is blowing off my message (which wouldn't make sense, but I don't want to make a potentially awkward situation worse).

 

[Mixolydian]

I don't think I've ever had a problem with iMessage personally.

 

[Kaido]

I only have problems with it to specific people. Like, I have a 4S and my brother has a 5, and half the time I send it, it starts going, it says Delivered, then it has the exclamation and says not sent, and I have to send it as an SMS instead.

My biggest gripe is Facetime. It never works right! Not on Wi-fi or 3G. I always have problems with it and rarely get it to connect, I usually have to switch to the inferior Skype app (yay laggy vocals & more pixelation),

 

[bearxor]

I've never had an issue with iMessage or FaceTime during normal use.

If I swap my SIM between devices without turning iMessage off, then I have an issue.

 

[Rakehellion]

I've never had an issue with lost iMessages. If it isn't able to send, it'll tell you.

Now, I've certainly had numerous issues with lost SMS messages.

 

[TuxDave]

Can't say 100% but I had rare problems in times when cellular data was clogged due to a big public event or the public wifi was incredibly slow. In those occasions, you end up with some weird stuff happening. Probably get the same problems when using regular text messages in those cases too.

But I would say 99%+ of my iMessages go to and from without problems in normal cases.

 

[kbp]

If I have it on, one daughter gets no message at all from me on her T-Mobile Android.

 

[bearxor]

If I have it on, one daughter gets no message at all from me on her T-Mobile Android.

Does she have another iDevice that they might go to?

 

[JAG87]

Never had an issue with message delivery. The only beef I have is that iMessage is sometimes out of synch between iOS and OSX until I restart the application on OSX. Also if I delete an iMessage conversation from one platform, it should delete on the other as well. Apple needs to work on that.

 

[Ns1]

its not 100% accurate, esp when you automatically switch to a wifi network where you need to authenticate through a webpage.

therefore, i turned off imessage except for when i'm travelling internationally

 

[ViRGE]

I've never had an issue with it (as far as I know).

 

[rugby]

I've had issues lately where messages I read earlier in the day are just gone later on in the day. Or they will be one one device and not another. WTF.

 

[Megatomic]

No issues in my short history with iMessage.

 

[MrX8503]

I don't think I've ever lost a message. There are times where iMessage doesn't work and that's when Apple's servers are down.

In other cases where it doesn't work, it'll fall back to normal SMS. It may be just me, but I feel like iMessage sends faster than SMS.

 

[Eug]

My SMS messages are usually near-instantaneous. It does require a cell signal, but that's not an issue for me since I have no SMS or cell roaming charges anywhere in Canada. I do if I go outside of Canada, in that case I just use email.

After reading more on the subject and the fact that some people here continue to have problems on iMessage according to the poll, I think I'll stick with with SMS again. I know it's a small sampling so far, but 1/3rd of people in the poll have had problems, and 1/4 have more than rare problems.

The iMessage problems kinda remind me of the problems I've had in the past in SMS... but that was over a decade ago.

 

[MrX8503]

You can read more about iMessage speed here.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4956/apple-ios-5-review/3

 

[Eug]

^^^ Teat!

-

It says that their SMS takes 5 s but iMessage might be 2 s (back in iOS 5), but then iMessage may take several minutes or not deliver at all in areas of congested cellular data. That's annoying, and I encountered that too. Then 5 minutes later you get the SMS sent. My other problem back then was it didn't always work. If it didn't deliver the iMessage properly, you might get nothing at all. It seems this is still an occasional issue for some people according to internet posts.

 

[Mushkins]

The good part about iMessage is that it works over wifi so I can actually get them at my desk at work.

The bad part is that the failover to SMS is sketchy at best. My phone will frequently say something went through as an iMessage, then minutes later revert to SMS and resend creating duplicate messages or out of order texts.

Also it seems to frequently report something as undeliverable with the little red ! when my signal is weak and then two seconds later the person I sent it to replies as if they got it. Doesn't happen with SMS, only seems to happen with iMessage.

I've had a few people I talk to with older iPhones have it start acting up until they reboot their phone as well, but I dont have enough information about what their signal situation might have been at the time to really point a finger.

 

[smackababy]

I have never had a problem. On occasion, my iMessage will fail when I'm at work (due to low / no signal) and I will have to send as a text message, but it notifies me if it fails. I prefer the delivered / read receipts, so I don't think I could go back to normal SMS.

 

[East56]

I haven't had a problem with it, but I still prefer to keep it off and use SMS.

 

[boomhower]

No problems for me. Getting messages on the phone, tablet and notebook is very nice. I love it.

 

[GregGreen]

I've never had an issue with lost iMessages. If it isn't able to send, it'll tell you.

THIS. Falls right back to SMS if it can't send via iMessage and lets you know if that messed up too.

 

[Kadarin]

I've never had a problem with it. On very rare occasions it's failed to sms for me, but that worked just fine.

 

[MotionMan]

Zero problems here.

MotionMan

 

[slashbinslashbash]

I have no problems as long as I have a good Internet connection (whether Wi-Fi or LTE/4G/3G/EDGE). They seem to go faster than texts. If both sender and recipient are within good Internet networks (reliable WiFi, LTE/4G) then it goes through super fast.

However, I travel a lot for work, and sometimes this travel takes me to remote places where signal is not so good. This can even be at places like hotels where the Wi-Fi is spotty/overloaded, or maybe requires you to input the password at random intervals, but it will not kick you off the WiFi network, just disable Internet traffic (hate this!). In these cases, the iPhone thinks that it is connected to WiFi, so it tries to use it for Internet traffic, but Internet traffic is blocked until I navigate to the stupid login page. So, the iMessages get stuck, and the iPhone doesn't try to switch to LTE/4G/etc. even though it's available, because it thinks the WiFi is working. So sometimes if I'm staying in one of those hotels, I will disable the WiFi so that the phone will always use 4G so that I don't miss messages/emails/etc.

The other thing is in places where I get cellular signal but no cellular internet signal. (It happens, in these very remote places where I happen to work sometimes; yes, these are places within the continental US.) Voice calls and SMS can go through, but Internet of any kind (incl. iMessage) is not available. This also happens sometimes such that my recipient is in that kind of location, and I am not. In this case, the phone will usually revert to SMS after trying to send the iMessage, and usually the SMS goes through. Sometimes it will get the red "!" letting me know that it hasn't been sent, and I will have to click and tell it to try again.

I am not aware of any situations where I completely missed receiving or sending an iMessage/SMS. I have gotten doubled-up before (the Internet coverage is spotty so it gets sent once as an SMS and once as an iMessage) or maybe received/sent out of order (same) but it's *always* attributable to spotty Internet and/or cellular connections on one or both ends.

I would much rather have this kind of redundancy/failsafe behavior than have messages just go missing completely. I also think that people who do not have the computer/networking knowledge that I do, could possibly see these things happen and think that iMessage is not reliable. (Tip, set your phone to show dB signal strength -- it helps to show when connections are borderline.)

On a side note, I find that sometimes it is helpful to disable LTE and fall back to standard 4G, especially in smaller cities where AT&T has rolled out LTE but only has a few towers equipped with it. These can tend to get overloaded, so the LTE connection is super slow while 4G is still speedy, because of alternate towers or just more capacity. Of course, this would happen with any LTE-equipped phone, not just an iPhone, but just thought I'd mention it.