I'm actually a big fan of iMessage on iOS. I've used it since the introduction. It allowed me to lower my texting plan to a $5 one becasue most of my family and friends use Apple products. Like everyone, I put up with the occasional outage and it's not the end of the world because I can always send via text in a pinch.

The experience is actually pretty good on my iPad since iOS 6 integrated phone numbers and Apple ID. Conversations flow pretty seamlessly from one device to another.

The experience of using Messages on OS X to read iMessages is terrible. TERRIBLE. I don't understand what the problem is, but it plain doesn't work well. Conversations sometimes don't even occur. If the computer is off for a while and I open Messages, the conversation bubbles are all out of order.

It's a hopeless experience that Apple needs to dedicate some time to fixing. This does not 'just work'.