Open Radar

 
Summary:
There is no way for the user to determine if a a message will be sent over Apple's iMessage servers, via GSM/SMS or even via GSM/MMS and hence determine if sending a message will cost money on the SIM plan (by getting charged for SMS or MMS).


Steps to Reproduce:
Open iMessage, enter a recipient, type a message and hit send.


Expected Results:
There should be a way for the user to know beforehand which transport will be used for the message.


Actual Results:
At best it can be determined AFTER sending the message if it was sent over iMessage or SMS.
Also green and blue as the ONLY way to determine in which way a message was sent is not very accessible. User's have no way to know which color has which meaning. Worst case it just confuses them. Also people with a color recognition problem are likely to have absolutely no way to distinguish the messages.

Regression:

Notes:
There definitely should be a way for the user to know what transport is used for an iMessage BEFORE sending the message (to keep track of cost of messages on the SIM plan).

There should be a way for the user to prevent the use of certain transports, like MMS or SMS or even iMessage (for example if the user does not have a data plan on the SIM card or is roaming on a foreign network!).

There should be a way for the user to bring transports into a preferred order. Like preferring iMessage over the internet over using SMS and forbid the use of (ridiculously priced) MMS completely. Also the SIM card of the user may not even be able to send or receive SMS or MMS depening on their plan.