Android equivalent to imessage?

[mario64]

Hi all,

My wife and I will be receiving this week our new Galaxy S7 Edges. We're coming from iphones and ipads. I'm wondering if in the Android world there is an equivalent to imessage which would allow us to send and receive SMS texts on both the phone and, say, a Samsung Galaxy S2 tablet? This is one feature of ios that we do find useful. Our phones are ATT if that matters. I believe verizon has a messages app which can be installed on both phones and tablets.

Thanks in advance!

 

[shanghaichica]

Hangouts.

 

[Rukbat]

On the iPhone end, check the "SMS" box for at least one message to that number. (On each iDevice.)

iMessage isn't just a little Apple modification to messaging, it's an entire - and completely copyrighted - method of handling messages. And Apple won't let anyone else use it. If there's blame here, it's 100% on Apple's shoulders. You're blaming Samsung for not inventing iMessaging before Apple did.

 

[Chen 2]

On the iPhone end, check the "SMS" box for at least one message to that number. (On each iDevice.)

iMessage isn't just a little Apple modification to messaging, it's an entire - and completely copyrighted - method of handling messages. And Apple won't let anyone else use it. If there's blame here, it's 100% on Apple's shoulders. You're blaming Samsung for not inventing iMessaging before Apple did.

I don't think anyone has any blame, why should Apple give up their IP for free?

 

[Alex Dobie]

Best option is transitioning to something like Hangouts or FB Messenger. WhatsApp is also a possibility, and you can use the WhatsApp Web interface to get around the single-device/phone number limitation.

 

[mario64]

So Google Hangouts is the best option for us? @ Rukbat, could you please clarify what you mean regarding checking the SMS box on our idevices?

 

[mavrrick]

Actually the concept of instant communication wasn't invited and is not owned by Apple. If anyone has a possible claim to that it would be AOL. There are allot of instant messaging apps that can be used across devices. Part of the problem is our dependency on it be a SMS text message instead of using some other service to carry the data across.

Don't fool yourself into thinking iMessage is SMS as well, it isn't. It is just wrapped into the SMS client on Apple phones so it appears so. As long as you are talking to other Apple devices that are part of iMessage it doesn't go over the management protocal used for SMS. On the occasion you are communicating with someone that isn't on iMessage it reverts back to SMS that is all. It just prefers to try to stay in the apple iMessage system if possible. Hangouts will do the same thing. There is a setting in Hangouts that will allow it to serve as your SMS Client and it will do the seamless failover depending on what communication is available.

They really are the same thing for either system. Unfortunately Apple refuses to play nice and allow their messaging client on other platforms. Hangouts on the otherhand doesn't care.

You could also look at skype from a purely IM/video chat perspective. It does a slightly better job at being universal, but doesn't do SMS failback. Just IM though regular data channels.

 

[mario64]

What about some of these push apps such as Pushbullet? Would those work?

 

[Kevin OQuinn]

Hangout's won't fully replace iMessage if you are one to send videos. You can go the route of getting Google Photo links for the videos though if you really like Hangouts.

You can use Whatsapp and then connect the phone and tablet using the Side Sync app. It's definitely not as graceful as iMessage, but it'll work in a pinch.

 

[jinzen]

Hangouts is on the way out (it was never good anyway) for SMS.

Google Hangouts 7.0 for Android asks users to stop using it for SMS | Ars Technica

So no, Android doesn't (or won't) have an iOS equivalent.

 

[craigrn16]

Rumor is Google is working on an imessage equivalent that comes out with Android N

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[CobaDarkn3ss]

Honestly I don't think this could be achieved on Android the same way Apple does for the same reason we can't all get timely updates the way Apple does. Too many cooks in the same kitchen. Even if Google implemented something like this, different manufacturers would end up tweaking it, so it wouldn't be the same thing. The only way this would work is if Google implemented some sort of rule that the manufacturers couldn't change it in any way.

 

[bsteppuhn]

are you on Verizon? I think the message+ looks fairly decent. you can also send and receive messages from you laptop with it so why couldn't you do it with a tablet?

 

[Mario00064]

Sadly no. AT&T

 

[anon(9013794)]

I have the s7 edge and my wife has the s6 edge, whenever we text message each other it shows delivery and read messages like I message on the iPhone

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[bullittmustang]

Facebook Messenger works well. It also does video calling which is very similar to facetime.

 

[anon(9013794)]

I forgot to mention we have the ability through the stock phone app app to video call instead of phone call which is similar to FaceTime

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[badMojo69]

If you had a windows phone it would work with a windows tablet.

 

[mgm83]

I have T-Mobile and anyone else that has T-Mobile has the enhanced messaging. I shows when either one of us is typing and also sent, received and read. I had textra which didn't have those features so for now I'm sticking with the stock messaging app.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[anon(9013794)]

Im on tmobile , we have the read messages and video call from phone app

Posted via the Android Central App