If you can't update or restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. You can put your iOS device in recovery mode and then restore it with iTunes. In these situations, you might need to use recovery mode to restore your device: 1  iTunes doesn't recognize your device or says it's in recovery mode.
Text messaging, or texting, is the act of composing and sending brief, electronic messages between two or more mobile phones, or fixed or portable devices over a phone network.
SMS stands for Short Message Service, which is the formal name for text messaging. It's a way to send short, text-only messages from one phone to another. These messages are usually sent over a cellular data network. That's not always true, though, as in the case of iMessage below.