[CharlesW]

> I wasn’t looking at this from a technical perspective, more of a business/finance/operations perspective.

I understand, but an iMessages¹-only Messages² is a non-starter at Apple because it causes complexity and customer confusion, two things that Apple is stellar³ at minimizing.

¹protocol ²app ³overall, always exceptions

[ericabiz]

Oh, right. I agree with you on that front. I see it working this way:

If you are standing on top of a mountain, right now you can’t send anything.

With Apple’s upcoming announcement, you’ll be able to send an iMessage.

If you try to send a SMS, it just won’t go through—-same as it would today.

I hope Apple allows it for all messages, personally. But I could definitely see them restricting it, especially at the beginning.

[CharlesW]

> If you try to send a SMS, it just won’t go through—-same as it would today.

I may be confused about the scenario then, because this does work for me. Specifically, when I turn off my cellular radio (I'm a T-Mobile customer) I can still send and receive messages to people not using iDevices.

[vineyardmike]

Most carriers have wifi-calling (and wifi SMS) that you can enable.

[easton]

Even without Wi-Fi? Because that’s the scenario they’re talking about, where nothing sends because you have no signal whatsoever.

[CharlesW]

> Because that’s the scenario they’re talking about, where nothing sends because you have no signal whatsoever.

Right, but the point of an iPhone that can talk to satellites that I'll generally always have at least a low-bitrate IP connection? Because with that, I can text iDevice and Android users alike.

[rblatz]

Weird, I’m on Verizon and if cellular is off all sms is broken but iMessage still works if I’m on WiFi.

[CapmCrackaWaka]

I find this completely false, messaging anyone on a non-iPhone (from my iPhone) is a complete disaster. Pictures / texts randomly fail to send, videos turn to 12 pixel noise, it’s so bad that an entire generation of people have friend groups that apple / android only because communication between the two phones is so bad.

[CharlesW]

> I find this completely false, messaging anyone on a non-iPhone (from my iPhone) is a complete disaster.

You should complain to your carrier. I'm on at least 5 different active text chains at any given time (family, friend groups, school parents) with a mix of devices, and it all works fine.

> …videos turn to 12 pixel noise…

That's an MMS limitation. If you regularly send videos, you'll want to use WhatsApp or some other non-standards-based messaging app.

[roywiggins]

iPhones are stuck with MMS limitations because Apple won't support RCS.

[SllX]

Hopefully they never will. Nothing I’ve read about RCS in the last two months has convinced me it is anything other than a security and spam hole waiting to happen. If there’s to be an inter-operable standard between Apple and Android, I think it has to be Apple and Google-driven rather than something that makes the carriers happy. Anything at all to reduce their role to dumb IP-carrying pipes is aces in my books.