Confused about iOS5 iMessage? Yeah, a lot of people are…

Even tho I have always been anti-smart phone, I jumped for the iPhone 4s, not because I thought it was earth shattering, or that it was the ‘true’ iPhone 5. I just wanted a step forward, to get rid of my clunky Sony Ericsson, and get something that allowed me to manage my email, contacts and apps (but I’ll save that for another rant…)

What I want to clear up today, is the confusion (at least for me and a few folks I know) regarding iMessage. iOS5 brings to it a new feature, the ability to give the carriers a ‘BIG F-YOU!’ when it comes to gauging users on ‘per-text-message’ options. Personally I don’t want to pay more than $5 bucks for texting, and I don’t think I should have to pay $20 per month for 160 characters each. My $5 is a 200 message plan, which is more than enough for me.

But ever since I got my iPhone, I have been unsure of what the hell I was doing when sending a message, I would click on the green ‘message’ button, and then I tried selecting a co-worker, but I couldn’t select their apple id email address, it would just show me their home/mobile numbers. However, one friend of mine told me “Its the colors! Look at the send button colors”…

At that point, the realization came, when you SELECT A CONTACT, the send button will turn one of 2 colors:

• GREEN = Text message
• BLUE = iMessage available

So that’s it, don’t worry about SMS vs iMessage, just remember, blue is good, green is not (if you are not on the unlimited plan at least!).

Hope that helps some of you to clear up the confusion regarding wether you are sending an actual iMessage or just a plain text message. Oh and in case you didn’t notice, the input box, also says “text message” vs “imessage” just to be sure, but still its confusing, especially judging by people’s forum posts around the net.

Enjoy!