Messages does eight things very well:
Instant messaging. Instant messaging combines the privacy of email and the immediacy of the phone. You type messages in a chat window, and your friends type back to you in real time.
Unified chat/text messages with phones (iMessages). This is huge. If you and your conversation partner both have iCloud accounts, then you both can move freely from phone to tablet to Mac. Your conversation appears in real time on all your gadgets simultaneously. If you started texting someone on the train home, you can sit down at your Mac and open Messages—and pick up right from where you left off.
The messages, which Apple calls iMessages, are a lot more flexible than regular text messages. They can be much longer than 160 characters. They can include photos, movies, or other kinds of files. They give you feedback that lets you know when a message has arrived on the recipient’s gadget.
And they don’t count as text messages. They’re routed through the Internet rather than the cellphone voice network. As far as your cellphone company is concerned, you’re not texting at all, and therefore you don’t have to pay for a texting plan.
Send text messages. If you have an iPhone, you can also exchange text messages with any cellphone—from Messages, while seated at your Mac. That’s a mind-bending violation of the usual rules that confine text messages to cellphones only.
Send audio clips. Instead of just typing a line or two to somebody, you can speak it. That short recording winds up on the other person’s Mac, iPhone, or iPad. It’s like leaving a voicemail.
Free long distance. You and a buddy can also chat out loud, by talking, using the Internet as a free long-distance phone. Wait, not just the two of you—the 10 of you, thanks to Messages’ party-line feature.
Free videoconferencing. If you and your buddies all have fast Internet connections and cameras like the ones built into most Mac models, then up to four participants can join in video chats, all onscreen at once, no matter where they happen to be in the world. This jaw-dropping visual stunt can bring distant collaborators face to face without plane tickets—and it costs about $99,900 less than professional videoconferencing gear.
File transfers. Got an album of high-quality photos or a giant presentation file that’s too big to send by email? Forget about using some online file-transfer service or networked server; you can drag that monster file directly to your buddy’s Mac, through Messages, for a direct machine-to-machine transfer. (It lands in the other Mac’s Downloads folder.)
Screen sharing. Next time your parents or neighbors are throwing themselves upon your mercy for tech support, remember this: Messages lets you see their screen, and even control it, from across the Internet. Or you can volunteer your own screen for sharing, so you can demonstrate things to them.
As hinted above, Messages is your gateway to Apple’s own chat network, called iMessages. They require that both you and your chat partner have iCloud accounts (Chapter 15).
iMessages are a lot like text messages on cellphones, except:
They’re unlimited and free.
There’s almost no length limit.
They can include photos, videos, and other huge files.
They can go to Macs, iPhones, and tablets—and, in fact, they appear simultaneously on all of yours.
Unlike in traditional chat, your pal doesn’t have to be online to get your message. An iMessage will be there when he turns his gadget on again.