First, if you can wait, the 6 will be coming out in a few months.

A fun money-saving strategy is to get the 5S and then immediately sell it.

The 5S is selling for close to $700 for new in box.

You can then buy a used Verizon iPhone 5 for about $320. Or buy a 4S used for $200. Put that $380 right in your pocket. The iPhone 5 is just about as good as a 5S.

Once the new model comes out, the last model drops $200 or so in price, but used iPhones never really go below $200 no matter how old they are.

Great strategy if you are putting kids on your plan, etc.

I used to do this when I had my parents on my plan. We'd renew the contract, get new phones, and they would just keep using their old ones.

Be warned when Apple released a new OS, they sometimes slow down old hardware. I made the mistake of upgrading my iPhone 4 to iOS7. The 4S is fine on iOS7, but will certainly be too slow for iOS8.

I am pleased to announce that I have finally become part of the 21st Century and am the owner of an iPhone 5s

Verizon started the $100 off a Smartphone of $199 or more last week, and I ran off to get one. I was on vacation, and hit a Verizon store while away I figured it would be faster than waiting at my local store on a Sunday. It was - took less than 30 minutes ^^

I did not add texts to my plan, and have already sent a few that were "green" indicating they were not iphones. I looked at my usage and it's not showing any charges for texts. I used iMessage to send them. Perhaps they don't count.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice.

^ Welcome!

Blue indicates iMessage, green are plain old texts. You can't send using iMessage if the recipient doesn't use iMessage, it's an all or nothing deal... it's not possible to send using iMessage and have the recipient receive it as an SMS. So if you're to be charged for text messages, I'd expect the green ones to eventually hit your usage/bill.

Now that's odd. I clearly sent iMessages to green recipients

Maybe Apple has got an server issue again. Anyway I only got "Messages" and within it I can either send a text or an iMessage. You descripten is a little weird!

Let me be clearer then

I have 1 app icon - for Messages (it's green with a white circle in it) From there I sent texts - the blue messages I was told are for those with iPhones, the green are for those without. I was expecting to see text charges from last week show up in my account activity for the green messages. The calls I made are there

So sorry for the confusion. It's the same place.

Yes, there is one app. The app automatically decides whether the message will be sent as an iMessage or a text message. As for why it's not showing up in your activity, couldn't tell you... is the other person a Verizon user? Perhaps you have some sort of mobile-to-mobile feature that applies to text messages just like it does to calls within the Verizon network?

You probably have a bucket of free texts you're using.

Blue messages are iMessages, which use data and can only be sent between iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

Green messages are standard text messages.

You can turn off iMessages in Settings -> Messages if you want. Then, everything will send as standard text messages.

Thank you

Very strange... We kept our old plan and just added data. We did not have the text message option, at one point we did for $5/mth but turned it off when we realized we weren't using it.

It's the old "covered america" plan, or something like that. It's one of the first family plans.

One of the other users has a iphone but is not on Verizon. The other definitely doesn't have an iphone, but might be on Verizon

I'll just wait and see if it shows up on my bill. Or I can call and ask

Did you enable iMessage on the new phone?

Go to Settings/Messages and make sure you've enabled iMessage. Use your Apple ID to enable it if you haven't, that's the fastest way to get it working on your phone. You have to re-enable it on new devices, sometimes when you change SIM cards, etc. Test it by trying to send to somebody you know that has it working already. If it's not working, then try disabling and re-enabling it, using your Apple ID. You can even try sending one to yourself.

Messages is an app, it supports SMS and iMessage protocol. You can view it as IOS' "unified" messaging app. It will use iMessage if it's enabled and the recipient supports it, and will be indicated by greyed out "iMessage" in the empty text box and blue text. Otherwise it will show "text message" greyed out in the empty text box and use green text.

iMessage is a messaging protocol, supported by Apple and uses your wifi or data connection.

You will also may want to edit the email addresses and numbers you send/receive iMessages from in the same Settings, you can also choose which number or email address new iMessages are sent from.

-David

iMessage can only be used if you have Wi-Fi or cellular data switched on, which I usually do not because I have unlimited texting at no extra charge; and the only time I activate cellular data is if I have no Internet service...

...and if I want to download anything onto my iPhone, I simply do it at one of my Macintosh computers.

and you think that's applicable to Mary2e?

Yes, iMessage uses data. (Wifi or cellular data).

If you don't want to use it (like in the case you mentioned) just disable iMessage in Settings/Messages. But that really wasn't the issue here.

-David

Possibly — depending on the specifics of her plan.

even after reading post #51 and #54?

Yes.