For anyone owning an iDevice, iMessage is turned on by default the moment you login with your Apple ID and to be honest its so good in Pakistan because if you haven’t used sms lately, they are quite the disappointment these days. Yes everyone uses WhatsApp and Whatnot these days so telecommunication companies think its okay to loosen up quality on regular call and SMS. Tried calling a jazz number recently? And heard that the phone number is incomplete? Exactly.
These are the situations where default services like iMessage and FaceTime come in handy because you don’t need to divert to another app to do what your phone is supposed to do normally. Now its good for iOS users and Android might be getting something similar soon also for their larger user base but the fact remains that in times we don’t have internet, which are a lot of times if you drive around, you have to use the good ol sms/call. So a handy tip for you is to go to your messages settings and turn on ‘send as sms’ for the times you don’t have internet the message will send normally as an SMS. Secondly I prefer to use my number as primary source of sending you can select that in ‘send and receive’ settings.