The reason I’m asking is because iMessage has been down for a most of our customers. We routinely send messages 500-700 characters long and have zero problems over iMessage. Now that we’re sending them via MMS, one of two things happens:
1) The message gets “undelivered” 5-7 times (takes 15-30 seconds each attempt)
2) The message will go through on it’s first attempt
I’m curious what’s actually happening with an MMS and why most of the time it takes 5-7 times to get delivered and seems to shut down the “messages” app for 30 seconds each time. Also, why after 7 attempts will it suddenly deliver in 3 seconds after I hit send?
iMessage has been having problems since Wednesday and since this is happening all day, I’m genuinely curious why regular long messages get constantly rejected, and only after 7 attempts will the phone actually “deliver” the MMS messages.
Sorry if the terminology is wrong.
In: 14
SMS is a technology that’s built on a basic function of voice networks that’s been around for 20+ years. It’s limited to 140 text characters, no emojis. Some phones in the mid-2000s were smart enough to break large SMS messages into 140 character parts, send them one by one, and reassemble it into a single entry.
MMS is a cross-network thing supported by the wireless carrier and their data network. Agreements were made on picture/video encoding and those standards were programmed into phones. Since it was on the data network there were fewer limitations, long messages, group messages, and emojis were possible.
iMessage is an MMS that uses your AppleID for delivery, and the app supports falling back on the SMS/MMS technologies if the user isn’t an iMessage subscriber. There’s even more functionality than MMS because it’s only used on Apple products, so no carrier agreements.
Google has a competing open standard called Rich Communication Service. In the last couple years you may have noticed the behavior of an iMessage user liking an android user’s text messages – You used to get a separate message saying someone liked your message. Now the message gets the thumbs up icon. It’s likely that Google is adopting some of the standards of iMessage.
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