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Isabel writes, “I have an iPhone and an iPad. Is it possible to message or text someone who does not have an Apple product? And, if that?s too easy for you guys, how about this: is there any way to do it for free without a texting plan?”

It?s totally possible. The simplest way is if both you and the person you are trying to message are using a cross-platform messaging app (one that works on both Android and iOS). There are several apps that you can use to send short text messages over Wi-Fi like Kik, WhatsApp and even Facebook Messenger. The two major problems with all of them is that you can only send messages to people who are also on the same service, and you cannot use them to send regular old SMS text messages.

The best app that we have found that actually sends real text messages is Google Voice. With Google Voice, you can send text messages from the app on your iDevice or from the Google Voice website. It takes a little while to setup, but it?s completely free.

The main catch is that Google Voice gives you a new phone number for your Google Voice account for free. Once you pick it out, you can use that number to make phone calls, send text messages, and receive them too ? as long as you?re on Wi-Fi or cellular data. You can text anyone in the U.S. and Canada, and you can receive texts from anywhere in the world.

The simplest way to get started is to go to the Google voice website. Login with your Google email address if you have one, and then click ?Get a voice number? on the left and follow the instructions. When it asks you to ?add a forwarding phone? you will need to tell it the phone number of your existing cell phone. Google will actually make a robo-call to your phone and give you an activation code to verify that your number belongs to you. Once that is all set up, download the Google Voice app and start texting.

We should once again note that Google Voice is not a cellular service. If you don?t have an internet connect through Wi-Fi or a wireless provider you will not be able to use it.

Alana wants to know why iMessage – a feature on Apple devices like iPhones iPads that lets you send text messages using your data plan rather than your texting plan – separates texts according to which device they were sent to or from, even though they’re all from the same person. What does she need to do to make sure all of her devices are using the same login information? The hosts of Deemable Tech, Ray Hollister and Tom Braun, help her out in this week’s Ask Deemable Tech.

RAY: Hi, I’m Ray Hollister

TOM: I’m Tom Braun,

RAY: and we’re the hosts of Deemable Tech. On the show, we answer your questions about computers, tablets, mobile phones and the Internet, like this question:

TOM: Alana sent us an email with the great title iMessage iAin’t iWorking. She asks: I thought that when iOS 6.0 came out iMessage was supposed to be synchronized between your iPad and your iPhone. I have an iPad and an iPhone, and my husband has an iPhone, but he has to send texts to either my iPad or iPhone. It doesn’t work on both. Did I read that wrong, or do I have something set up wrong?

RAY: iOS 6 did fix the problem, but it didn’t fix it automatically.

TOM: OK, first of all, for our listeners that don’t have iOS devices, iMessage is a text messaging system that works on iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. It replaces text messaging for folks using those devices. So, your iMessage texts don’t use your texting plan, but go over your data plan instead.

RAY: The problem was that you had to keep track of which device you were messaging. So, for instance, I could send a message to my wife’s iPhone or her iPad, but not to both at the same time. And to make things worse, iMessage would show the message based on who sent it, not which device sent it. So, I would have two message threads that both had my wife’s name on them. It was really frustrating, and there wasn’t anything we could do about it. The problem was that on an iPhone, you signed into iMessage with your phone number, but on the iPad and iPod touch you signed in with your email address.
Then, iOS 6 came out, and you could sign into iMessage on any device with multiple sign-ins, including additional email addresses and your phone number. So, that was supposed to fix the problem. Now, all your iMessages would appear on all of your devices. Except it didn’t “just work.” Everyone that I’ve talked to that has multiple iDevices has dealt with this.
But, fortunately, it is fairly easy to fix.

TOM: So Ray, what do they do to fix it?

RAY: If you want to sync your iDevices across iMessage, open the Settings app on all of your devices and go to Messages, and tap Send & Receive. Then, scroll down to the heading that reads “Start new conversations from:” Make sure that whatever sign-in you are using for that, it is the same sign-in across devices. If you have an iPhone, I would suggest using your iPhone’s number, but otherwise, just make sure you are using the same email address.

Also, I made the assumption that you are using the same Apple ID on both devices, but just to be safe, check and make sure that you are. The Apple ID at the top of that page must be the same on both devices. If it’s not, tap on Apple ID and Sign Out, and then sign in to the same address on both. Also, under the heading “You can be reached by iMessage at:” make sure that you have all of the same email addresses and phone numbers. If you are missing a phone number or email address on one of the devices, you need to make them match. Either delete it from the device that has it, or add it to the device that doesn’t.
Then, you should be good, Alana. Test it out.

TOM: To hear more answers to questions like Alana’s, listen to our show at Deemable dot com, that’s D-E E-M A-B-L-E dot com. There you can listen to all of our previous episodes and, of course, subscribe to our podcast.

RAY: If you have a question for Deemable Tech give us a call us at One Eight Eight Eight, Nine Seven Two, Nine Eight Six Eight, or you can send us an email at questions at deemable dot com. For Deemable Tech, I’m Ray Hollister

TOM: And, I’m Tom Braun.

Ray may not have written Johnny B Goode like Marty McFly, but he almost broke the space-time continuum.

On this week’s episode of Deemable Tech, Ray creates a temporal causal loop by leaving a voice mail for Deemable Tech and answering it.Then, he and Tom answered questions about whether you can play 3D Blu-Rays discs on your HD TV, if can you delete a picture without deleting the picture, how to stop your Kindle devices and apps from synchronizing, how to Google better, how to extend the battery life of your cellphone, what order you should unplug your laptop in, and does Facebook owe you money?

All that and more, on this episode of Deemable Tech!

Make sure to subscribe to the show in iTunes by clicking here, or subscribe to the show in another podcast reader by clicking here. Also, make sure to leave us a review in iTunes. The more reviews we have the higher we’ll be listed in iTunes and the more listeners will see our show!

Need tech help? Got a problem or tech question about your computer, phone or tablet? Give us a call and leave us a voice mail at 1-888-972-9868, or send us an email to questions at deemable dot com. We’ll take the best questions and answer them on the show.

Links mentioned on this week’s show:

• PhotoAlbums+
• ?You Google Wrong? by The Atlantic Wire
• Inside Seach – Advanced Power Searching – Google
• www.fraleyfacebooksettlement.com
• AppGratis
• Apps Gone Free

Episode 28 – A Voicemail Causal Loop

Crowdsourcing an Answer

Ardis asked,

Dear Deemable Duo,
I’ve recently been having some issues scheduling D&D games due to the busy lives of my fellow dice rollers. I’m sure you find the idea of D&D players having lives as shocking as I do, but regardless, if games are to continue we need to find some way around this problem. I was wondering if there was any kind of program that might make it easier to coordinate our schedules? Not necessarily something that will show our full schedules but something that could let us see what free time we have in common or something to that effect. Thank you for whatever insight you might be able to give.

What do you recommend for Ardis? Leave your suggestion in the comments down below. Thanks!