IPhone – Selectively force Siri to send SMS instead of iMessage

I believe that the siri command for imessage is: Message Alice i'll be there soon. This will not prevent it from sending a text message. To prevent it from sending a text message, go into settings --> messages --> and turn off the "Send as SMS" switch.

In her contact it should look like this:

Alice Appleseed

Phone: (XXX) XXX-XXXX

Email: aliceappleseed@xxxxxxx.net

What you need to do is try to message her on one of these accounts.

Try saying: "message alice on her email...I'll see you later"

Then: "message alice on her mobile...I'll see you later"

The point is: you want to state where you want to send the message. If you just say "message Alice", then siri will ask you where you want the message to go.

Since the iPad doesn't have a phone number, you message it through its email address (this will have to send an iMessage). The non-iPhone uses its phone number (this will have to send a text message).

I hope this helps.

Update: Brought to my attention by the author of the original question, the method above: "message alice on her email...I'll see you later" is not fully effective.

Rather, saying it this way:

"message alice on iCloud...I'll see you later"

will send the imessage to Alice's iCloud email address (which must be set up by her as an E-mail address which can contact her via imessage). Note: If I'm correct, the E-mail account used as a contact point does not have to be an iCloud account (although it may be better to use one anyway). For instance, you could use the E-mail account of johnny.appleseed@example.com, yet label it as an iCloud account in Contacts, and it SHOULD work the same.

Sadly, I have since stopped using Siri, simply because I have been too busy, so feel free to correct me if I am wrong about this all.

Glad I could help. (surprised that you remembered my answer, since it was written a good while ago.)

The possible solution for this is turn your network off for a moment, and try sending it as an SMS, if it goes good, else hold the blue bubble for a second and tap on "Send as Text Message". I use to do this for iOS 5, I am not sure if this has updated for iOS 7 as I haven't tested till now.