iMessage Weird Behavior

Question

I have multiple mobile devices (2x iPhone, 2x iPad) in my home, all which share the same iTunes account between them. When iMessage is used to exchange messages between two of the devices (e.g. the two iPhones), the messages appear to be sent from and received by the same identity. The only way I have found to correct this by turning off iMessage on one of the devices and only using SMS.

Is there a way to associate iMessage with a different iTunes account than other apps on the same device?

Answer 1

If you go into Settings > Messages, you should be able to choose which email addresses you get iMessages to. It's under the Receive At option which let's you input additional email addresses.

Additionally, you can even sign out of your iMessage account without affecting the iTunes account by tapping on the name of the account you are currently signed in as (on the same screen).

Here's what it looks like on an iPhone:

Answer 2

iMessages on an iPhone will always receive on the phone number of that phone, and (by default) the email address associated with the iTunes ID you logged into.

On an iPad or iPod, there is obviously no phone number and so they will only listen on the email address of the Apple ID.

However you are able to add additional email addresses to receive messages against. You are welcome to create any number of additional iCloud accounts for each device and add them into Settings > Messages > Receive At.

Then you just need to remember to use the correct email address to start a new conversation with. You can have contact entries for "My iPad/myipad@me.com" and "The Wife's iPod/thewifesipod@me.com" etc if you wish to effectively address a device directly rather than the user of the device.