Receive, Read and Send SMS Text Messages on Your Mac Computer and iPad!

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Getting SMS text messages on your Mac or iPad from your Android friends may just be the holy grail for many Macbook and iMac users, but until now iMessage (formerly iChat) has not worked with messages sent from Android phones. If the person with whom you are messaging has an iPhone, then you can message them from your Mac with iMessage, but that has not been the case for texting with Android and other non-iOS phones.

But a new feature in Apple’s upcoming [Page no longer available – we have linked to the archive.org version instead] changes all that.

Blue messages are from iPhones, green messages are from Android and other non-iPhone devices.
sms android to imessage

Starting with Yosemite, says Apple, and if you have an iPhone, then SMS text messages sent to your iPhone will also show up in iMessage on your computer.

sms text messages to imessage

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Part of their “continuity” initiative, which also allows Mac users to take calls from their iPhone on their Mac, the new feature seems to relay a text message received from your iPhone through your iPhone, back to iMessage. At least, that’s the only way we can see that this would work, as otherwise it would require carriers to play nicely with iMessage.

sms text message on imessage mac

Frankly, we see this as one of the most useful OS X developments in a long time. Although, speaking of a long time, Yosemite won’t be available until the fall, when it will be a free update.

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