macOS Sierra: The Missing Manual

iMessages

Messages is your gateway to Apple’s own chat network, called iMessages. It requires that both you and your chat partner have iCloud accounts (Chapter 17).

If the box where you type says “iMessage” in faint lettering, then you’re about to chat with a fellow iCloud member—and you’ll be sending iMessages. (Another clue: Your speech bubbles will appear in blue, rather than green.)

And you’ll enjoy a long list of extra benefits as you chat (as compared with, for example, standard cellphone text messages or chats on Yahoo or AOL).

For example:

• Fancier, longer posts. You can type outrageously long messages (unlike standard text messages, which are limited to 160 characters). And iMessages are unlimited and free.

• Dressier chats. You can use fonts and colors in your conversation.

• Multi-gadget simulcasting. If you have multiple Apple gadgets, and you’ve set up your iMessages email address or phone number identically in the Settings or System Preferences of each one, then your conversation appears simultaneously on all the gadgets. (“Simultaneously,” however, is relative. If one of your devices has been offline for some time while you’ve been chatting on the other, it may take a few minutes to catch up. You’ll see all the iMessages it missed pouring in.)

  That’s extremely useful, because it means that you can (for example) start texting on your phone when you’re out and about and pick up seamlessly on your Mac when you get home, enjoying the real keyboard and big screen.

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