Imessage on Ipad Question

[LuluBlakey1]

I have two friends who I imessage- sometimes on my iphone, sometimes on my ipad.

I have no issues with imessage on phone or ipad with people who have an iphone. However, these two friends do not have iphones. If I message from my iphone, it usually works but will not let me send messages that contain emojis or photos or any other 'image' . On my ipad, it often will not send them any message at all- even ones that are just text. Sometimes it does- but seems random. It will not ever send a message with an emoji/image in it.

I have tried every 'fix' I can see on the internet- none work.

Anyone else have this?

Any ideas?

Thanks - I have now done this and will see what happens. I think it might be the solution.

I'm not techy but I'd say that they dont work the same way because they are different things and expecting them to be the same is why you've had problems.

As I understand it one is a universal wash to send messages and one is an apple brand feature so of course there will some element of fiddling when a non apple device is involved

If you want to send pictures from iPhone to android you need to go your settings-messages and enable sending MMS. Depending on your mobile contract, you may be charged for these.

Hi @LuluBlakey1 iMessage is an APPLE service. It only works Apple to Apple device. It replaces text messages between those devices, and is free. Back in the day when you paid for texts this was a bonus. If you pay for sending text photos it's a bonus.

You know it's an iMessage because it's blue not green.

You cannot iMessage anyone who is not on an Apple device, you can only text them.

Your ipad is unable to text your friends because it's not a phone - texts go over the cellular phone network and basically use spare bits of bandwidth. iMessages use either your data allowance or WiFi.

Though all of these distinctions are slowly disappearing, which is why it's easy to get confused

I have - thanks. It still doesn't send them.

I went to the Apple store in town today to ask about this and about issues with the camera in my iphone 15 pro.
They had 3 members involved and none could explain the inconsistencies between what I can send phone/ipad to a non Apple device over imessage. Sometimes I csn send images, sometimes they refuse. The staff all had suggestions about what settings I needed to change but they had already been changed.
In the end they said it must be to do with Gifgaff on my phone. Quite tellingly, I thought, two of the three did not have Apple phones themselves.
One then mansplained to me how a camera works!