Apple says I can use iMessage within my app, I am asking how and where are docs explaining it ?
Note my quote from the Apple site TODAY:
"In iOS 5 SDK, the Message sheet now supports the iMessage service, so you can start individual or group text conversations from within your app."
Gotta love that ! Now, where is the documentation of the API's to do that ? This is not a question of "is there an API available", this is a follow-on to their direct statement today, on their site --
Where do I find the docs to code individual or group text conversations from within [my] app ? The Message UI Framework looks like it has the same tied down strategy where you don't really send an SMS message but prep it, for manual sending by the user. That restriction basically came from the fact that SMS was a chargeable offense at both ends and the user should know that he was sending an SMS and that he was only smart enough to know that if it came from Apple's own UI.
But iMessage changes the scenario. It is charge free. If the framework can return to me a value that I can send an iMessage to a recipient, as it knows within its own Text Message app, then sending an iMessage is not a cost encompassing offense. The restrictions of chargeable SMS no longer apply. So where is the API to find out if a recipient is a iMessage eligible recipient and then code an iMessage, completely created, formatted, and send from within my app ?
Thanks.
-Ric
The quote from Apple's site you give answers your question. It says that the message sheet supports iMessage. It doesn't say you can send arbitrary messages without using the standard UI. So far as I know, there's no way to do this directly.