I believe iMessage is one of the greatest things Apple has released in recent months (I’m sure many of you will disagree). However, it is not without its faults; when Apple’s iMessage servers are down, for example. Another is when an iMessage will not send because of poor signal. Sometimes in these cases sending the message as a text will work just fine.
Luckily for all of us that use iPhones there is an easy way to resend the failed iMessage as a text. Just tap on the text bubble and choose ‘Send as Text Message.’ The message should be sent as a text immediately and the bubble will go from blue to green to show the change from iMessage to SMS. To my knowledge, this only works in iOS 6.
Another more permanent solution for sending failed iMessages as SMS is to go into your settings. Then scroll down to select Messages — located in the 4th chunk of menus. You should see a switch named “Send as SMS”. If you turn this on then whenever an iMessage fails to send your iPhone will attempt to send as a SMS instead. This is only recommended for those who have unlimited texting or keeps track of the number of texts sent because text overcharges can add up quickly if you aren’t paying attention.
As a side note it should be mentioned that this article’s information only applies to iPhones. iPod touches and iPads (even those with data plans) which can send iMessages do not have the ability to send SMS.