The oldest parts of the cellular phone system are figuratively held together with chicken wire and chewing gum, and wireless carriers have little motivation to change it because it works and nets them billions upon billions of dollars. Apple created iMessage for an improved (and secured) messaging ecosystem and married it on the iPhone with “traditional” SMS (text) and MMS (multimedia) cellular messaging systems. .

Text Message Forwarding links the cellular network with your other devices via iCloud accounts and your iPhone.
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