To be clear, Apple does not intercept SMS messages. The messages people say are hijacked are from other Messages users, sent to an individual's Messages label

To be clear, Apple does not intercept SMS messages. The messages people say are hijacked are from other Messages users, sent to an individual's Messages label that happens to look like their phone number. Anyone using SMS can SMS your number on your new phone, since SMS is not being hijacked, and Apple is not intercepting SMS to do anything with it. If you don't want Apple friends using that label to reach your remaining Apple devices (a normal use case!), then remove the label yourself before ditching your iphone: - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201349 - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT203042 Or, remove it yourself after: - https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/ https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/