iMessage/SMS Toggle for SBSettings

Jmills87 · Jan 10, 2012

Text needs a cellular data connection. If you disable "cellular data" in settings, that only disables the data for webpages, push notifications and emails just like it says in the setting. The cellular connection is still used to send texts even if you turn "cellular data" off. The only way to test if it needs a connection or not is to enable airplane mode which turns off ALL cellular data. At that point you will not be able to send or receive texts because, as I already said, texts require a cellular connection.

bab2010 · Jan 10, 2012

2G (Second generation) SMS is a globally accepted wireless service that enables the transmission of alphanumeric messages between mobile subscribers and external systems such as electronic mail, paging and voice mail systems (International Engineering Consortium, 2002). If a wireless recipient is switched off, out of range or if there is a network outage, the SMS message will be stored in the network and delivered when the recipient announces its presence, or when the outage is rectified. No guarantees existed with previous such services eg. Alphanumeric paging. This is the basis of the store-and-forward concept. SMS messaging makes use of a separate channel, normally used for transfer of control messaging to transfer its packets. Being out-of-band, this means voice and data calls will not be interrupted by SMS transfer. Furthermore, the low-bandwidth requirements of transmitting short alphanumeric strings allows messaging worldwide with very low latency. This of course depends upon network operator agreements.

The world-wide standard 1G in the late 1980s and early 1990s had no capability for text messaging. 2G GSM: European networks began development of a digital standard (GSM) in 1991. Phase 2 of the standard, release in 1993, defined data bearing services over GSM – SMS was a part of this standard. Vodacom (South Africa) became the first company in the world to implement fax and data services on its network, later that year.
CDMA/TDMA: The American networks decided to take an alternative route, using first TDMA and later, the superior CDMA which integrated text messaging into its standard. TDMA later gained this capability through Motorola’s iDEN development.

The mobile station is the wireless terminal capable of receiving and originating short messages. These are usually digital cellular phones, but more recently the application of SMS has been extended to other terminals such as point-of-sale (POS), handheld computers and personal digital assistants (PDAs). The wireless infrastructure is based upon signalling system no. 7 (SS7). More specifically, the SS7 mobile applications part (MAP) defines mechanisms and methods of wireless communication, and the transactional capabilities application part (TCAP) in which a SMS service layer makes use of the MAP signalling capabilities and enables the transfer of short messages.

3G (third generation) SMS is base on the ESME (External Short Messaging Entities). ESME is any device that may send or receive SMSs. They may be fixed within the mobile network, may communicate through an external network (such as the Internet) or may simply be another Short Message Service Centre, perhaps from another network.

Examples of ESMEs include:
- Voice mail notification systems (such as Optus’ voice mail service)
- Internet-based clients such as the webSMS interfaces readily available at BlueSkyFrog.com or freeSMS.com
- E-mail servers: originally only to notify users of incoming messages, this technology has now extended to actually viewing and sending e-mails from the keypad of one’s mobile phone
- Application base such as iMessage
- Others, such as paging systems, operator bureaus and so forth.
Hope that helps to understand a bit.

pianoman · Jan 11, 2012

yeah.. what bab said... lol

dan448899 · Jan 11, 2012

When I said data, I was referring to 3G. iMessage relies on a mobile internet plan; it will not work if you do not have this or are not connected to Wi-Fi. The data types clearly are different because otherwise, you wouldn't be able to SMS on basic phones without a mobile web plan. Sending data over 3G, at least for me, requires more energy than sending it over basic cellular services.

Jmills87 · Jan 11, 2012

dan448899 said:
When I said data, I was referring to 3G. iMessage relies on a mobile internet plan; it will not work if you do not have this or are not connected to Wi-Fi. The data types clearly are different because otherwise, you wouldn't be able to SMS on basic phones without a mobile web plan. Sending data over 3G, at least for me, requires more energy than sending it over basic cellular services.

3G IS a basic cellular service. And no, you do not need a mobile internet plan to use iMessage. As I already said it will work on a plain old wi-fi connection. If iMessage required a mobile internet plan it wouldn't work on the iPod Touch.

pianoman · Jan 12, 2012

Jmills87 said:
3G IS a basic cellular service. And no, you do not need a mobile internet plan to use iMessage. As I already said it will work on a plain old wi-fi connection. If iMessage required a mobile internet plan it wouldn't work on the iPod Touch.

i've been following this and now my head is spinning. if there's positively no difference between the transmission protocols/methods of sms and imessage - then why did apple develop imessage? what advantage is it?

dan448899 · Jan 12, 2012

I would like to also point out that CDMA networks (Verizon and Sprint) cannot use any functions of mobile data (Browser, iMessage, etc.) without being connected to WiFi during a call, yet it is possible to use SMS. Surely this indicates a fundamental difference.

jjmartinez1982 · Jan 13, 2012

Surely it has to...

Jmills87 · Jan 13, 2012

pianoman said:
i've been following this and now my head is spinning. if there's positively no difference between the transmission protocols/methods of sms and imessage - then why did apple develop imessage? what advantage is it?

Because iMessage doesn't count as a text so it saves people money that don't have an unlimited texting plan and also because it only requires a wifi connection meaning non-3G devices can use it such as the iPod Touch.

bab2010 · Jan 14, 2012

pianoman said:
i've been following this and now my head is spinning. if there's positively no difference between the transmission protocols/methods of sms and imessage - then why did apple develop imessage? what advantage is it?

The difference between SMS and iMessage is that you are having and able to SMS because of your carrier who provide it to you via radio waves 2G digital signals. Without your carrier providing you with that service, there isn't such a chance you could be able to send/receive SMS, and that's why your SMS are linked to your phone number. If your carrier comes to have a maintenance issue or whatever the can suspend both calls and SMS function so you won't be able to use SMS. You carrier is award of how many SMS you send/receive in a month, they even know to whom you've send SMS to and the date and the time, it's easy for your carrier to follow your SMS activities. In addition, they can limit your usage of the SMS and start taxing you per SMS, that why they have SMS plans.
iMessage in the other hand relay only on radio waves GPRS/EDGE/3G/WiFi digital signals. While it's true that your carrier is the one providing you GPRS/EDGE/3G, they basically have no control over what you are using it for. The GPRS/EDGE/3G is a plain Internet base activities and if you know what is Internet, you sure know that you carrier is nowhere able to control all internet right?

iMessage uses a specific server to control and allow operability of the application, it's an Apple server certainly which has nothing to do with your carrier so you carrier can't charge you for it. Apple could charge for iMessage users using Apple server, but good for us, they allowing us to use their server for free

. Now let's say that we have iMessage app for Internet browser, you log in with your apple ID, you send a message to your friend using the browser app, the message land in Apple server and apple server forward your message to your friend, the same thing happens when your friend replies to your message. (while you could use your carrier GPRS/EDGE/3G to browse Internet, to send that message to your friend via the iMessage browser app, it has nothing to do with your carrier except that you are using their data which you certainly already paid for) but to save the hassle of going to an Internet browser and login all the time before doing iMessage, Apple decide to build the algorithm within the default SMS app in your iPhone, what is going on when you send an iMessage using your SMS app of your iPhone, is the same as if you where using an iMessage browser app. So here you are not depending on your carrier except for the GPRS/EDGE/3G connection you are using from them, once you carrier stop providing you GPRS/EDGE/3G network, you will not be able to use iMessage anymore unless you have a wifi spot which is almost the same as a GPRS/EDGE/3G except that WiFi is a lot more faster than those networks connections your carrier provide to you. iMessage work on wifi the same way it works on GPRS/EDGE/3G and only Apple is capable of controlling your iMessage if they wish to do so. If you are out of GPRS/EDGE/3G and WiFi signal or range, or out of Internet connection on your iPhone, then there is no way you could use iMessage even though your phone have full 2G signals in your phone. You will only be able to basically use your 2G signals to make and receive phone calls and SMS.
Like Jmills87 mentioned, the advantages of using iMessage is to avoid the extra charges from you carrier in case you do not have unlimited SMS plan but have GPRS/EDGE/3G or at least a WiFi connection in your phone, notice that you can't send iMessage to non-iMessage users.

pianoman · Jan 15, 2012

Jmills87 said:
Because iMessage doesn't count as a text so it saves people money that don't have an unlimited texting plan and also because it only requires a wifi connection meaning non-3G devices can use it such as the iPod Touch.

so in essence iMessage is like these other free texting apps other developers have come out with. they don't get charged to your data plan nor count toward used texts but they do transmit on your cellular carrier. right? but if that's so how can they work over pure wifi. that's the part that still confuses me - even more so after bab's post.

bab2010 · Jan 15, 2012

pianoman said:
so in essence iMessage is like these other free texting apps other developers have come out with. they don't get charged to your data plan nor count toward used texts but they do transmit on your cellular carrier. right? but if that's so how can they work over pure wifi. that's the part that still confuses me - even more so after bab's post.

Other developers like "Whatsapp, youlu, ect" do not transmit over your cellular carrier.
There is a need for you to have an ID before one can send you a message, 2 options here, first, either the devs have their own servers, so they will require you to register on their website so you can have a user name which will be use to be able to forward massages to you, second option is that the devs are not having their own servers, so your cellular number will be use as you ID in their system so their system can forward messages to you locating your by your cellular number.
it's not everyone who has the money to own a server in order to manage transferring of messages between you and your contacts you are messaging with, so using your cellular number ease the pain of owning a server, and they use your cellular number only to be able to locate you and forward messages to you.
Apple have their own server, and so you can register with apple to have an ID in order to use iMessage, also Apple give it the choice for those who do not want to have an Apple ID so you can activate and use iMessage using your cellular phone number. Try to disconnect your Apple ID from your phone and you will see that you will still be able to iMessage both on 3G or wifi because somewhere in your iPhone system you have activate iMessage with your cellular number. This doesn't mean that iMessage transmit over your carrier but instead, it locate you using your cellular number.
Notice that all of those apps which do not have anything to do with your carrier like transmit messages via your carrier require you and your contacts to have the same apps. If you use iMessage, your contact must also have iMessage, if you use Whatsapp, your contact must have Whatsapp, if you use youlu, your contact must use youlu if not it just doesn't work.
Any other applications you can use to send messages to your contact and where you contact might not be using the same application but can receive your message are definitely transmitting over the carrier because first you use your contact phone number as to be his/her ID, second your contact will receive the message as a pure text message if he/she doesn't have the same app you've used to send out the message, or receive it as a chatting messenger app if your contact is using the same exact app you've used. In this case where your contact is using that same app, your conversation are no longer transmitting over the carriers, but over the app owner system and it's using the cellular number just for taeget ID.

Jmills87 · Jan 15, 2012

pianoman said:
so in essence iMessage is like these other free texting apps other developers have come out with. they don't get charged to your data plan nor count toward used texts but they do transmit on your cellular carrier. right? but if that's so how can they work over pure wifi. that's the part that still confuses me - even more so after bab's post.

You are overthinking it. iMessage is like Skype or AIM or Blackberry Messenger. It's just a messaging system, it will work over ANY sort of data connection. Whether that's a cellular connection or a strictly wifi connection, it doesn't matter.

pianoman · Jan 15, 2012

Jmills87 said:
You are overthinking it. iMessage is like Skype or AIM or Blackberry Messenger. It's just a messaging system, it will work over ANY sort of data connection. Whether that's a cellular connection or a strictly wifi connection, it doesn't matter.

got it! thanks. that's clearer. and as such it doesn't count toward you texting limits. agreed?