Can One iPhone Recognize Another Just By The Phone Number?

[africanhut]

Hello and Merry Christmas. I have an unusual question. I typed in a friend's cell phone number in the text message box on my iPhone and instead of getting an ordinary message in green, it said "iMessage" and when I sent the message, the text was in blue. I have not been in contact with this friend for awhile so I have no idea if he has an iPhone or not.

Is it possible for one iPhone to recognize another one just my the telephone number? I am worried that he won't get my text unless he too has an iPhone. I message all the time and I have never seen this "iMessage show up before in the texting window??? If anyone can help me with an answer to this question, please do. There is nothing that I did differently, the phone did this by itself. Thanks in advance, Mike

[kaebfly · Accepted solution]

Yes, your iPhone can recognize another iOS device using iOS 5 (and therefore iMessage). As long as the other iOS device owner has iOS 5 and they have the iMessage feature enabled then whenever you text them it will revert to the blue bubbles to indicate that it is using iMessage instead of your text message plan.

The only time it will revert to iMessage is if the person at the phone number you are texting actually has an iPhone with iOS 5. If they switch to a different device it will no longer  switch to the iMessage service. You don't have to worry about that. There are times that the iMessage service may be down or not working...in those cases your messages will send as regular text messages (unless you have that feature turned off in settings).