9 ms·

iMessage purgatory

386 points by mortenjorck 12y ago

VLM 12y ago
Is the destruction of SMS as a technology necessarily bad? I don't think so. Like ripping off a band aid, get it over with and move on.
- akerl_ 12y ago
  This isn't about destroying SMS, it's about Apple's OS blocking communication to a number because they make permanent assumptions about the device at the other end.
- bradly 12y ago
  This article is not arguing against a replacement of current SMS technology. It addresses specific issues iMessage users are experiencing and the fact that it is controller by a single corporate entity.
- jimktrains2 12y ago
  SMS isn't that bad. http://jimkeener.com/posts/sms http://jimkeener.com/posts/sms I like it and find it useful in many circumstances.
uptown 12y ago
This site has a solution: 1. Reset your Apple ID password and do not log back in on your device(s) 2. Send a text to 48369 with the word STOP It won’t happen immediately but over a 12-hour period, you should start receiving texts on your Android device that are sent from iPhone users. http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-keep-receiving-sms-from-iphone-users-after-making-the-switch-to-android/ http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-keep-receiving-sm...
- bradfa 12y ago
  Official Apple knowledge base info: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5185 http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5185
  - Scorpion 12y ago
    I think it's important to note that the Apple KB explicitly states that the steps outlined in the parent comment and article do not work.
  - toddn 12y ago
    Which conflicts with http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538 (under Unlink a phone number).
  - benjarrell 12y ago
    What that doesn't say is that when you call, they will tell you that a support incident will cost $30.
- powdahound 12y ago
  I did all this a few weeks ago but still had to wait a few weeks for my friends' iPhones to realize my number was no longer iMessage enabled. During that time they all had to "Resend as SMS" on their messages to me. We all ended up on Google Hangouts in the end (the iOS app is nice!)
- johsoe 12y ago
  "Performing these tasks won't deregister iMessage" from: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5185 http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5185
  - w-ll 12y ago
    What is the point of that section then?
    - mikestew 12y ago
      Because the steps in that section keep getting passed around as possible fixes. Some of them are mentioned in this very thread. Sadly, it's been my experience that the fix Apple does suggest doesn't work reliably (works for some, not for others), either. EDIT: holy crap, as toddn points out above, apparently that section is also to contradict the bad information that is passed around in Apple's own KB articles: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538
boqeh 12y ago
I had this same issue. Apple wouldn't help me, unfortunately. If I recall correctly, I had to disassociate iMessage from my AppleID completely, which seems to have worked. Although I still can't be sure. I have a weird feeling the messages still aren't going through and a lot of my friends think I'm being an asshole.
- danielweber 12y ago
  This feels exactly like the dark days of Microsoft[1], where they would support a protocol halfway, and then make it impossible for people to switch away from their version of the protocol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
JimmaDaRustla 12y ago
Sounds like it would be easier to find new friends. Seriously though, iMessage should have some sort of interoperability on other devices, even if its just a web interface you can log into to make configuration changes, including the deletion/deactivation of an account associated with a mobile phone number. Edit: Or even monitoring iPhones associated with a number and disabling iMessage if said phone is no longer online with that number? Could possibly even forward unread messages, etc.
- LeoPanthera 12y ago
  It does. Log into your Apple ID at https://appleid.apple.com https://appleid.apple.com and un-associate your phone number. Though this only works if you attached your iPhone to your Apple ID in the first place. The phone bugs you about it repeatedly but many people do not do so.
  - JimmaDaRustla 12y ago
    Then I fail to see why this is really an issue - blog explains no proper solution, need to pay $20, engineers can't figure it out, etc... Sounds like hogwash.
    - axanoeychron 12y ago
      Unnecessarily dismissive. The OP has said [1] that he dissociated his number from iMessage and people who text him from iPhones are not getting through to him. That is problematic if you want to receive text messages on a non Apple phone. It would seem he wrote in his blog in order to get help or bring it to a wider attention. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7740438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7740438
      - JimmaDaRustla 12y ago
        No reference made to this in the article. The solution is there however, Apple just needs to fix their iMessage software to properly disassociate the number with iMessage. Again, like my unnecessarily down voted comment suggested, unlike this blog suggests, the solution is there, it just doesn't work.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
saurik 12y ago
What is interesting to me always is that my experience trying to send iMessages to people is usually the opposite: if someone's phone runs out of batteries or they start a phone call (on CDMA, which can't do voice and data simultaneously) I nearly instantly am forced to send them text messages. I also have found the "Delivered" notices very reliable: AFAIK they require a device to actually receive the message. Note however that it is "a device": if you have iMessage associated with another random device, it might be receiving your messages for you; I would be very interested in knowing if these people cataloged all devices they have from Apple (including Macs) and logged out of all of them. (It could, of course, just be a bug; but it at least doesn't seem to be some fundamental aspect of the design that it permanently hijacks messages.)
- oalders 12y ago
  My sister has an iPhone, but no data plan. So, if she's out and I want to text her from my iPhone, she needs to make sure she doesn't have iMessages running on her computer at home. If it's on, I text her a bunch of times and I just get the blue bubbles. Then I get a bunch of SMS messages from her saying "where are you? why aren't you texting me back" and hilarity ensues. I guess I could just call her.
  - jorts 12y ago
    My friend moved from an iPhone to an Android a while back and I couldn't message him anymore. I had to change the setting for his contact so that it would revert to standard SMS when imessage failed which seems to have worked fine, it's just a silly solution.
    - wlesieutre 12y ago
      And it only solves it for you. The rest of his friends are probably still tossing imessages into a hole if they haven't caught on.
  - netnichols 12y ago
    Ugh, I hear you. I had to disable iMessage on my girlfriend's iPad because it kept 'stealing' every SMS I tried to send her.
kevinherron 12y ago
Unfortunately I'm in the same boat right now. Tried calling them and having the number removed, etc... Been going on like this for over a month.
Scorpion 12y ago
I briefly switched from an iOS phone to an Nexus 5 and had the same issue. For other reasons, I switched back. A colleague of mine liked the Nexus a lot and made the switch after I did. He has been fighting this for months. Everything works properly for a while. Sometimes, several weeks will go by. Then, out of the blue, my phone tries to send the message to him as an iMessage. It's bizarre and frustrating.
lurien 12y ago
It's even worse if you want to keep an iDevice registered for facetime/iMessage use. You can't toggle it on and off on demand.
cek994 12y ago
I had a very similar problem when I drowned my iPhone and switched my SIM to an old Windows Phone 7 I had lying around. If you have your old phone, you can disable iMessage while the SIM is still in it, which apparently works -- but if you don't, you're basically up a creek. I ended up changing the email address on my iCloud account. It baffles me that online iCloud doesn't have a dashboard for controlling this. Doesn't seem it should be that hard to unlink phone numbers from iMessage.
joshstrange 12y ago
There was a story posted the HN that was very similar to this semi-recently, in fact I though it was a repost until I saw this was published today. I can't seem to find the previous post, does anyone else remember that/have a link? Thanks!
- PhilipA 12y ago
  I submitted this one pretty recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7555146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7555146
- WiseWeasel 12y ago
  From 100 days ago, 398 points: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced (blog.benjaminste.in) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7166955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7166955
  - joshstrange 12y ago
    Apparently I need to re-evaluate my usage of the term "semi-recently", thank you very much for the link! I bow to your superior searching skills. I used the HN search site [0] if you don't mind me asking what did you use to find or did you just have it bookmarked? [0] http://hn.algolia.com http://hn.algolia.com
    - WiseWeasel 12y ago
      I posted in that thread, so I was able to find it in my comment history without too much digging.
    - kalleboo 12y ago
      Google "site:news.ycombinator.com imessage phone number" Google beats any site search I've used.
fossuser 12y ago
Even more frustrating, reading this just reminds me how much better the google voice solution to this problem is and it predated iMessage by several years. Google has just let it atrophy - then they introduced hangouts late (relative to other chat apps in the market) and still have not integrated the google voice features or pushed them with android. Does anyone who works at/worked at Google know why this happened? Were they trying to turn the telecoms into dumb pipes with the original Nexus and gizmo5 purchase, but when that failed just abandoned the idea? You'd think the success of whatsapp and facebook chat would make chat a priority. If people communicate using your platform they're more likely to use your account for other things.
- ccozan 12y ago
  To be honest, Hangouts of Google does a pretty nice job of SMS integration and multidevice communication. First: if a person has SMS and also a google account, they are just put toghether under the same hood, but they don't get mixed, just get sorted. An SMS goes associated with the number so I would not receive a SMS as a talk message or what ever. Second: if I am getting a message ( over Gtalk or Hangouts ) all my devices ( including Chrome) are receiving it in the same (relative) time. No stealing around, all my conversations are sync'd everywhere.
  - voltagex_ 12y ago
    Not quite. I have a Nexus 4 and a Nexus 5. If I turn my 4 on, I'll get notifications (and sound/vibration) only on the 4, until I start using the 5 again. Strangely this doesn't seem to hold true if I use Hangouts on my computer (messages alert all devices)
- w1ntermute 12y ago
  Word on the street is that they're going to kill Google Voice soon and integrate its functionality into Hangouts. They've taken the first step by integrating regular SMS into Hangouts, so it can't be hard now. I hope it happens soon, but until then there are client-side hacks (such as XVoice+) that you can use to achieve the same functionality.
steven2012 12y ago
Wow, this has been going on for at least a year. I can't believe that Apple hasn't already fixed this problem, it really calls into question their commitment to doing the right thing.
- kevando 12y ago
  Yeah it's stupid issue but extremely easy to resolve. My messages went to purgatory for about 15 minutes. http://phandroid.com/2014/04/07/turn-off-imessage-iphone-to-android/ http://phandroid.com/2014/04/07/turn-off-imessage-iphone-to-...
  - wlesieutre 12y ago
    Does that work if you've wiped and resold your iPhone without disabling iMessages on it first? The impression I've gotten is that Apple will still think you're signed in even though you no longer have the phone (and can't sign out).
  - adampash 12y ago
    I've done all of that. The number is no longer associated with my Apple ID, but other iPhones still send messages to that number via iMessage — which means they go nowhere.
    - kevando 12y ago
      Well shit. Sounds like Apple has an issue clearing cache. In the hopes of actually solving your issue, I hate to suggest this, but try reconnecting your number to imessage (and make sure you get any new imessage texts), then properly turn off imessage from that device. The defacto unplug it plug it back in.
  - sbilstein 12y ago
    Sometimes this process just doesn't work. I've switched to android twice (and back to iPhone) in the last year cause of phone breakages and the moving off of iMessage the second time was a nightmare.
  - 12y ago
gdeglin 12y ago
Mashable wrote about this problem months ago: http://mashable.com/2013/09/16/imessage-problem/ http://mashable.com/2013/09/16/imessage-problem/ A lot of my friends have complained about this problem as well. I'm surprised Apple hasn't moved faster to come up with a solution. Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
- MBCook 12y ago
  They're not Apple customers anymore. It's not a problem (in that it's not effecting their customers, it IS their fault). The best way to get this fixed would probably be for iPhone users who lose the ability to message their friend to complain to Apple, not the former customer. Sad though. Apple is so good at customer service in many contexts. But sometimes they seem to decide on one of these seemingly purposeful blindspots and treat people terribly.
  - unfunco 12y ago
    The people with iPhones are still Apple's customers, and it's their messages that are disappearing. That's a perfectly good case for a CAL. Suppose that someone tried texting someone for medical assistance (silly, I know...), and that message was not delivered because the recipient changed their phone but kept their number, is that the fault of the person that changed their phone or is it the fault of Apple for not being able to realise that people might someday want to change devices?
    - superuser2 12y ago
      >not being able to realise that people might someday want to change devices? They did realize it. There are two mechanisms for handling this issue - turning off iMessage in Settings before deactivating your iPhone, and calling Apple after deactivating your iPhone. Both are documented. There is no way for your iPhone to know it's been deactivated and still communicate with Apple. If anything it's the fault of the carriers for not providing Apple with an API hook for "this iPhone was just deactivated." Also SMS is many times more lossy than iMessage. I've had messages show up to my friends on AT&T several days after they were sent, and not all. SMS messages longer than the length limit almost always arrive out of order, and sometimes parts don't arrive at all. Relying on non-iMessage texting for medical assistance is stupid to begin with.
jamra 12y ago
There is (or at least used to be) an option on your iPhone that forces the messages to be sent and received over SMS rather than iMessage. I wonder if one could turn on that option on their old phone before switching numbers. There was a fairly recent change in how iMessages are handled. In one of the iOS updates, you can receive iMessage messages on numerous devices tied to your Apple ID such as your iPad. I wonder if that's where the bug comes from. The other option is to switch to Android at home and get new friends.
- superuser2 12y ago
  I wonder if one could turn on that option on their old phone before switching numbers. Yes, one can, and this is the correct and documented way to avoid this problem. Unfortunately, people don't generally think about it before asking their carrier to swap out phones on their line, and your iPhone has no way of knowing you intend to deactivate it.
mrcwinn 12y ago
For what it's worth, I switched to Android and did not have to pay Apple $20 to disable my iMessages, despite not having an active support contract. I did, however, have to do a quick Google search, log in to my iTunes account through the web, and de-register my Apple devices. The problem was solved relatively quickly and for free. This should be simpler, but I'm not sure how much easier Apple can make it. They can't make an iOS app to help you because you got rid of the iPhone. It seems strange to make an Android app to help you. That leaves the web. Better luck to you!
- mikestew 12y ago
  > This should be simpler, but I'm not sure how much easier Apple can make it. You have to keep in mind that your steps don't work for everyone. There is no definitive set of steps that consistently work. I say this is as someone who has gone back and forth between iOS and Android a couple of times. What worked last time doesn't necessarily work the next time.
jc4p 12y ago
I went through this last month when I switched to the Nexus 5, had no clue I wasn't getting messages until someone with an iPhone tweeted at me asking why I as ignoring them. However, all it took from me was a call to Apple's customer service, I told them I had just switched off my iPhone and no longer got texts from people with iMessage and they immediately sent me to a tech that fixed the problem for me. Have you been explaining it correctly when you call? All I said was "I had an iPhone until last week, switched to another phone but I'm still registered for iMessage" Edit: According to my phone I called 1-800-692-7753 (Which is just 1-800-MY-APPLE) and my call took 8 mins 25 seconds total. Not too bad of an experience.
- kennywinker 12y ago
  It's encouraging that they actually have the capability to fix the issue, but you really shouldn't have to call tech support to regain control of your phone number. When you sign up for iMessages they don't say "We take over your phone number and route all texts from iphones to it and you'll have to call tech support to make us stop!"
  - jc4p 12y ago
    Oh of course, it's insanely annoying. It's not even something that crossed my mind since before transitioning to my iPhone I used to carry multiple phones on me and just switch SIMs around (I'm a mobile dev, not a drug dealer, I promise) I'm just saying that it's not hopeless, Apple hasn't done anything about it in years and from the blog it seems like the writer thinks they'll just never get text messages from iPhone users again, which is false. From what I understand, it's less of a deliberate "HAHA SCREW YOU" and more of a caching issue on their iMessage registration side. The removal of my number took around 24 hours to propagate to their services (e.g. if a person who didn't have a thread with me put in my number, it would show green not blue) and I had to have some friends delete our chat history since my iMessage-ness was cached on their phone. I think Apple only checks iMessage registration in pull format, e.g. when someone toggles iMessage on/off on their phone, rather than constantly checking it through some "does this phone have service" background test.
edgesrazor 12y ago
I ran into this issue 2 years ago when I dropped iPhone for Android - I seriously can't believe it's still a problem. Even following Apple's official KB article, it will still take a few days for all of your messages to start going through again.
enscr 12y ago
Whenever I look at the iMessage icon on my iPhone/iPad, I feel it had so much potential when it came out but Apple just squandered it like a brat. If only they had opened the gates on interoperability ..sigh ! Sometime back they were arrogant and brilliant, not just the former.
hert 12y ago
Even more of a disaster with iMessage group threads. I had a thread w/ two friends, and when I switched to my Moto X, I didn't realize that I was no longer receiving messages on the thread from ONE of them. Turns out, one of their iPhones recognized that it should start texting me, while the other's iPhone kept iMessaging me w/out delivering failure reports. So frustrating that I forced them to get WhatsApp!
ironghost 12y ago
Easy (yet long) fix: on iPhone - Disable iMessage from the settings menu. - Go back to messages and send a standard text message to the phone number. - Enable iMessage from the settings menu. Done.
JohnHaugeland 12y ago
I've been here for almost a year. It's not clear why this seems okay. "We've stolen contact for a year. We're working on it." Seems like anti-competitive behavior. Stopped buying Apple 100% immediately once I found out.
pmorici 12y ago
The easiest way to avoid this problem is to make sure you turn off iMessage on your iPhone before you switch devices then you don't have this problem in the first place. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3392014?start=15&tstart=0 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3392014?start=15&tstart...
- nerdtalker 12y ago
  As someone who regularly switches between Android and iPhone, this is the answer everyone is looking for. It's as simple as turning it off before you switch to a device which is SMS-only. Moreover, before you sell your device or give it away, make sure you turn iMessage off.
- jbl 12y ago
  When I switched from an iPhone to an Android handset, I found that I not only had to switch off iMessage, I had to switch it off while my SIM card was still in the iPhone. Switching iMessage off after the fact didn't seem to work.
  - pmorici 12y ago
    Yes, you need to do it before porting your number.
shurcooL 12y ago
I find it interesting how so many people still find it acceptable in 2014 to be using a "phone number" as their id. It's a number you can't even pick yourself: you _pay_ to get a randomly assigned digits, at best with the ability to reroll (also not always free). To me, it feels like someone using an `@aol.com` email in 2014. Or a rotary phone.
- btgeekboy 12y ago
  The phone number is a backwards compatibility feature. We have modern ways of locating a user (see SIP, Email), but those won't be compatible with POTS. The use case here, Apple's iMessage, in fact allows users to use alternate methods of user lookup, including multiple email addresses. If you don't find it acceptable, what do you propose as an alternative?
  - shurcooL 12y ago
    > If you don't find it acceptable, what do you propose as an alternative? So far, the best alternative for id that I've found is... Email address. It's highly available, free to create, and you can pick your own letters/numbers that are meaningful. It can even be your name. Definitely better than phone number digits at being an id that I can share with my friends or those who I want to be able to contact me. (For voice calls, I primarily use FaceTime Audio because they support email as id. But I also have skype, voip number for backwards compatibility, etc.)
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      Phone numbers are portable between providers, email addresses are not. So email addresses make worse identifiers (where consistency rather than encoded meaning is the important thing) than phone numbers. (Also, the "pay to get a randomly assigned number" isn't always true: my Google Voice number was free, and I got to ask for particular digits string to be included and got to choose from a list of numbers that met that requirement.)
- retroafroman 12y ago
justizin 12y ago
frustrating, indeed. the short answer is, if you are in the know, and you switch from iphone to android, disable iMessage on your iPhone first. It would be great to see an interoperable solution replace iMessage, but for now, it is (purportedly) secure and often more reliable than text messaging. I still pay for an unlimited sms plan.
- headShrinker 12y ago
  > I still pay for an unlimited ams plan I just couldn't bring myself to be extorted 25 or 50 cents per text. Why is there no government investigation in to this? No class action? I thank Apple for at least allowing me to text the majority of my friends for free.
headShrinker 12y ago
> save the green vs. blue bubbles, which are in their own way a sort of weird social/status indicator Save your opinionated anti Apple rhetoric. The color coded indicator allows people to know which features are included in the service, or whether your text was delivered and read or in your case, not delivered...
- kennywinker 12y ago
  While color coding totally serves a useful purpose, it's also DEFINITELY used by some as a indicator of status or inclusion in a group. People are super tribal, and will use any indicators available to indicate inclusion or exclusion.
  - dfc 12y ago
    Think different...
    - NathanCH 12y ago
      Oh cmon, how is this any different from Google Hangouts? Messages sent from Google Hangout's are green, and default SMS is grey.
      - dragonwriter 12y ago
        iMessage uses shading based on transport (SMS/MMS vs. iMessage) for both your messages and others, but from looking at my own mixed SMS/MMS/Hangouts threads, Google uses green for your outbound messages sent with Hangouts, and grey for your outbound SMS/MMS messages and all incoming messages (with "via SMS" and "via MMS" alongside the time display on in- and out-bound SMS/MMS messages.) So, to the extent that the Apple behavior can be seen as signalling in-group membership with color of messages, it is distinctly different from Google Hangouts, since the only person whose messages are colored to indicate delivery method in Hangouts are yours, not the ones you receive from others.
      - kennywinker 12y ago
prutschman 12y ago
Google Hangouts on my Android phone keeps bugging me to intergrate SMS into Hangouts, as well as to "confirm" my mobile number. My fear is that something analogous to the iMessage "purgatory" might happen, though I haven't heard of anyone experiencing it.
- deong 12y ago
  As of now, there's nothing to worry about. The problem with iPhones occurs because (1) Apple's implementation is apparently crappy, and (2) Apple tries to treat SMS and iMessage as just two identical channels through which a message can be received. You send a message to a person, not a phone number or iMessage account, and Apple figures out how to route it. The problem occurs when they guess wrong. Google isn't doing #2. The SMS integration with Hangouts is limited to just showing your SMS and IM messages in one view. When you send a message, you send it through one channel or the other explicitly. Google doesn't ever guess how you wanted to send it, so they can't guess wrong.
  - prutschman 12y ago
    The part that concerns me with Hangouts is that it wants to know my mobile number for some reason. They say it's for discovery purposes. For now at least.
    - dublinben 12y ago
      If you're using Google apps on your phone, they already know your mobile number. I'm not sure what you're concerned about.
      - prutschman 12y ago
        Google as an organization has my mobile number from a variety of sources, but that doesn't mean I want to associate my mobile number with my Hangouts usage in such a way that other people with my phone number can automatically contact me via Hangouts.
  - 12y ago
mwsherman 12y ago
IM and SMS are different ideas. SMS moves a message from one device to another. SMS also knows nothing about the receiving device or whether the message got there. IM (under which I include iMessage) is user-to-user, not device-to-device. It can know about the recipient and whether messages are received. Each of these things has advantages. SMS works because the phone network is always tracking a device. It is very addressable. The receiving device is mobile, rarely changes, and is singular. IM has a notion of sessions. The user signs off and on. It can travel over any IP connection. The device on which the user is addressable changes a lot. There may be multiple devices, making the definition of “delivered” a bit less deterministic. Conflating these two makes for a confusing mental model for the user, and for failures like this.
softinio 12y ago
I've been having the same issue and it ruined part of my vacation as people I was meeting up with on vacation thought I was ignoring their texts and we never met up. What adds insult to injury is that all ios devices are shipped by default with the setting set to not send by sms when user not found on iMessage. Apple should own up to this problem publicly and compensate users.
vasundhar 12y ago
1. Validation seem to happen when you send the first message to check if given number is associated with iMessage 2. Second time onward it only checks if the sender is in Data Network or not. 3. There is an option in the iMessage settings > Messages > "Send as SMS" if this option is not selected once the device/iAccount knows the other device is iPhone and you are on Data ... it just sends an iMessage. Turn "Send as SMS" so that it falls back to SMS if the destination is not available for iMessage.
K0nserv 12y ago
How can the engineering team be clueless on how to fix this? Now I admit that I don't know the inner workings of the iMessage protocol and servers, but presumably all that needs to be done is to disassociate the number with the Apple ID. If I were to guess this would involve dropping a row in a table somewhere.
benstein 12y ago
I went through this a few months ago and discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7166955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7166955 Here's my update: It's been about 4 months or so since I switched. Nothing I was able to do or Apple was able to do fixed the problem. I was able to put Messages into debug mode and I sent Apple a full debug log (Apple bug report #15966535). They marked the ticket as "Duplicate" and I was no longer able to view any updates. After about 3 months, most of the issue has resolved. The majority of group-texts work now; iPhones now send the whole thread is MMS not iMessage. It's still not 100% but pretty good. Most of my friends can send SMS without failures, but quite a few still get "iMessage failed" and have to "resend as SMS". I've completely given up trying to fix the problem. Just hoping the remaining iOS devices resolve themselves at some point, or Apple fixes in next update. <rant>Everyone thinks this is an Android problem that they can't message me anymore. Really tough to explain to the world that it's _their_ phone that's buggy.</rant>
dangoldin 12y ago
I ran into this too and ended up calling Apple. Their solution was to tell everyone who had my number to erase their iMessage history with me. Somewhat odd - I can receive individual texts from two people that have iPhones but if one of them sends a group text to both of us, I do not receive it.
izacus 12y ago
Well it seems that Apple has little incentive to fix this and have been dragging their feet: They're hoping that a brand new Android user will blame non-working SMS messages to their phone and return it for another iPhone. Just another lock-in behaviour from them.
rnovak 12y ago
I had the same issue, but I was able to still retrieve the messages via another apple device that was still connected to the iMessage service. I was then able to disassociate my number with the service. When I had my iPhone, I had originally linked both my email and my phone number to the same iMessage account, so fortunately I never lost messages. If it was tied to your email as well, you might be able to disable the service via another apple device.
jms703 12y ago
The only reliable fix I've seen for this is to have your friends remove and re-add your mobile number from their contacts.
cstrat 12y ago
I have read about these issues plaguing people. It is strange because whenever I have roamed overseas or have disabled data for whatever reason. People still can text me, albeit I am sure there is a delay between when they hit send and when I got the message. Friends of mine have moved from iPhone to Android, when I send them a message it tries with iMessage - and I get the message failure exclamation mark. It then resends as a text and doesn't try iMessage again for some time. Haven't really had the black hole experience yet...
vhost- 12y ago
Same story here. Switched to an android decide and no one could text me for months. Months! It's almost unbelievable.
harmonicon 12y ago
This happened to me when I got my android phone with a new number. When my friends with iPhones texted me, the text always shows up as iMessage and I would never receive it. The thing is, I have not owned ANY smartphone before this one. My guess was the previous owner of this number had an iPhone and registered for iMessage service. iMessage route sms through its own server it never reached my carrier's network. I tried to get help from Apple store technician, but since I am not an apple customer, past or present, employee did not see a need to help. Problem is I really liked that number. After 2 months of struggle I gave up and changed to a new number. I will admit I never liked Apple and do my best to purge iProducts from my life. But I guess you just cannot avoid being screwed, anyway.
_Simon 12y ago
This again? FFS RTFM...
- rspeer 12y ago
  Hey look, the new comment-approval policy totally fixed trashy low-effort comments on HN.
  - dang 12y ago
    Please don't reply to trashy low-effort comments on HN with trashy low-effort comments on HN.
ahassan 12y ago
My friends and I have never ran into this issue switching from iOS to Android. The main thing to do is to disable iMessage on your old iPhone before you get rid of it; that should unregister it on Apple's servers. If you do that, then you should be unregistered unless you have another device hooked up (i.e. Mac).
george_ciobanu 12y ago
I have similar issues with an iPhone and iPad synced to the same account. Stuff is always out of sync.
benhansenslc 12y ago
I switched to an Android phone 3 weeks ago and I am also still not receiving texts from iPhones. Apple's customer support said the same thing to me as they did to you. They told me that one customer had to wait 40 days before they were fully removed from the system. I am just hoping that it gets fixed for me by the time 40 days has come around. I filled a complaint with the FCC at https://esupport.fcc.gov/ccmsforms/form2000.action?form_type=2000B https://esupport.fcc.gov/ccmsforms/form2000.action?form_type.... It is a form for complaints against wireless carriers for number portability issues.
JacksonGariety 12y ago
Why aren't they making sure there's an active iPhone number associated before delivering any iMessages? Obvious solution.
mwill 12y ago
I encountered this problem recently on a smaller scale. I disable iMessage for various reasons, but recently had to factory reset my iPhone, which led to iMessage being enabled. I completely forgot about it and after I remembered to disable it, I suddenly could no longer receive text messages from my friends with iPhones. I gave Apple a call and initially the only response I could get from them was "Just turn on iMessage" and general confusion about why I had it turned off in the first place. Eventually someone I talked to said they could fix it, and shortly after I started receiving messages again.
X-Istence 12y ago
Had a friend recently go through this. She called up Apple, had her number deregistered and about a day or two later everything started flowing correctly again...
sturmeh 12y ago
Is it conceivable that Apple are deliberately ignoring this issue as it does exactly what they would want? It punishes people who move away from their platform with social isolation. It's easy for them to overlook this issue and not put any effort into fixing it, because the investment would result in a better experience for everyone who switching away from Apple.
- Bud 12y ago
  No. This is not conceivable. In fact, Apple has never taken a single documented action which would be at all similar to this. If one thinks about it for just a moment, one can see the hilarity of even suspecting this. Apple has very consistently provided the best overall experience and service in the industry over the last 15 years. They have done this regardless of whether you are using one of their products (PC users who use iTunes) or their entire ecosystem of products. It strains credulity to think that Apple would attempt to punish a customer who is moving away from a given iPhone (perhaps even to a new iPhone!). That customer could very well still use several other Apple products for years or even decades in the future. You expect us to believe that Apple would antagonize that customer in a grade-school fashion, out of spite? It's just nonsense to even think this.
greggman 12y ago
A friend found this http://support.vodafone.com.au/articles/FAQ/How-to-deactivate-iMessage-if-you-re-switching-from-iPhone http://support.vodafone.com.au/articles/FAQ/How-to-deactivat... TLDR; Deactive iMessages on your iPhone before switching or go here if you don't have access to your phone. http://supportprofile.apple.com/MySupportProfile.do http://supportprofile.apple.com/MySupportProfile.do Sounds like that's not enough from reports below tho
e79 12y ago
Their support page makes it sound like they can just de-register iMessage with your account. http://support.apple.com/kb/ts5185 http://support.apple.com/kb/ts5185 A few comments here seem to suggest that this is a carrier or cellular infrastructure issue. It isn't! iMessage doesn't route over SMS-- that's the whole point. It routes to Apple's servers, which should be capable of doing a lookup to see if the number still has an associated iCloud or iMessage account.
NeliX4 12y ago
What's wrong with iMessage on Android app? http://imessageonandroid.com/ http://imessageonandroid.com/ Why this exact same issue is poppup up in HN every now and then...
- NeliX4 12y ago
  Sorry my fault. It's a scam.

386 points by mortenjorck 12y ago

VLM 12y ago

Is the destruction of SMS as a technology necessarily bad? I don't think so. Like ripping off a band aid, get it over with and move on.

akerl_ 12y ago
This isn't about destroying SMS, it's about Apple's OS blocking communication to a number because they make permanent assumptions about the device at the other end.
bradly 12y ago
This article is not arguing against a replacement of current SMS technology. It addresses specific issues iMessage users are experiencing and the fact that it is controller by a single corporate entity.
jimktrains2 12y ago
SMS isn't that bad. http://jimkeener.com/posts/sms http://jimkeener.com/posts/sms I like it and find it useful in many circumstances.

uptown 12y ago

This site has a solution: 1. Reset your Apple ID password and do not log back in on your device(s) 2. Send a text to 48369 with the word STOP It won’t happen immediately but over a 12-hour period, you should start receiving texts on your Android device that are sent from iPhone users. http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-keep-receiving-sms-from-iphone-users-after-making-the-switch-to-android/ http://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-keep-receiving-sm...

bradfa 12y ago
Official Apple knowledge base info: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5185 http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5185
- Scorpion 12y ago
  I think it's important to note that the Apple KB explicitly states that the steps outlined in the parent comment and article do not work.
- toddn 12y ago
  Which conflicts with http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538 (under Unlink a phone number).
- benjarrell 12y ago
  What that doesn't say is that when you call, they will tell you that a support incident will cost $30.
powdahound 12y ago
I did all this a few weeks ago but still had to wait a few weeks for my friends' iPhones to realize my number was no longer iMessage enabled. During that time they all had to "Resend as SMS" on their messages to me. We all ended up on Google Hangouts in the end (the iOS app is nice!)
johsoe 12y ago
"Performing these tasks won't deregister iMessage" from: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5185 http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5185
- w-ll 12y ago
  What is the point of that section then?
  - mikestew 12y ago
    Because the steps in that section keep getting passed around as possible fixes. Some of them are mentioned in this very thread. Sadly, it's been my experience that the fix Apple does suggest doesn't work reliably (works for some, not for others), either. EDIT: holy crap, as toddn points out above, apparently that section is also to contradict the bad information that is passed around in Apple's own KB articles: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538 http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538

boqeh 12y ago

I had this same issue. Apple wouldn't help me, unfortunately. If I recall correctly, I had to disassociate iMessage from my AppleID completely, which seems to have worked. Although I still can't be sure. I have a weird feeling the messages still aren't going through and a lot of my friends think I'm being an asshole.

danielweber 12y ago
This feels exactly like the dark days of Microsoft[1], where they would support a protocol halfway, and then make it impossible for people to switch away from their version of the protocol. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish

JimmaDaRustla 12y ago

Sounds like it would be easier to find new friends. Seriously though, iMessage should have some sort of interoperability on other devices, even if its just a web interface you can log into to make configuration changes, including the deletion/deactivation of an account associated with a mobile phone number. Edit: Or even monitoring iPhones associated with a number and disabling iMessage if said phone is no longer online with that number? Could possibly even forward unread messages, etc.

LeoPanthera 12y ago
It does. Log into your Apple ID at https://appleid.apple.com https://appleid.apple.com and un-associate your phone number. Though this only works if you attached your iPhone to your Apple ID in the first place. The phone bugs you about it repeatedly but many people do not do so.
- JimmaDaRustla 12y ago
  Then I fail to see why this is really an issue - blog explains no proper solution, need to pay $20, engineers can't figure it out, etc... Sounds like hogwash.
  - axanoeychron 12y ago
    Unnecessarily dismissive. The OP has said [1] that he dissociated his number from iMessage and people who text him from iPhones are not getting through to him. That is problematic if you want to receive text messages on a non Apple phone. It would seem he wrote in his blog in order to get help or bring it to a wider attention. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7740438 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7740438
    - JimmaDaRustla 12y ago
      No reference made to this in the article. The solution is there however, Apple just needs to fix their iMessage software to properly disassociate the number with iMessage. Again, like my unnecessarily down voted comment suggested, unlike this blog suggests, the solution is there, it just doesn't work.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

saurik 12y ago

What is interesting to me always is that my experience trying to send iMessages to people is usually the opposite: if someone's phone runs out of batteries or they start a phone call (on CDMA, which can't do voice and data simultaneously) I nearly instantly am forced to send them text messages. I also have found the "Delivered" notices very reliable: AFAIK they require a device to actually receive the message. Note however that it is "a device": if you have iMessage associated with another random device, it might be receiving your messages for you; I would be very interested in knowing if these people cataloged all devices they have from Apple (including Macs) and logged out of all of them. (It could, of course, just be a bug; but it at least doesn't seem to be some fundamental aspect of the design that it permanently hijacks messages.)

oalders 12y ago
My sister has an iPhone, but no data plan. So, if she's out and I want to text her from my iPhone, she needs to make sure she doesn't have iMessages running on her computer at home. If it's on, I text her a bunch of times and I just get the blue bubbles. Then I get a bunch of SMS messages from her saying "where are you? why aren't you texting me back" and hilarity ensues. I guess I could just call her.
- jorts 12y ago
  My friend moved from an iPhone to an Android a while back and I couldn't message him anymore. I had to change the setting for his contact so that it would revert to standard SMS when imessage failed which seems to have worked fine, it's just a silly solution.
  - wlesieutre 12y ago
    And it only solves it for you. The rest of his friends are probably still tossing imessages into a hole if they haven't caught on.
- netnichols 12y ago
  Ugh, I hear you. I had to disable iMessage on my girlfriend's iPad because it kept 'stealing' every SMS I tried to send her.

kevinherron 12y ago

Unfortunately I'm in the same boat right now. Tried calling them and having the number removed, etc... Been going on like this for over a month.

Scorpion 12y ago

I briefly switched from an iOS phone to an Nexus 5 and had the same issue. For other reasons, I switched back. A colleague of mine liked the Nexus a lot and made the switch after I did. He has been fighting this for months. Everything works properly for a while. Sometimes, several weeks will go by. Then, out of the blue, my phone tries to send the message to him as an iMessage. It's bizarre and frustrating.

lurien 12y ago

It's even worse if you want to keep an iDevice registered for facetime/iMessage use. You can't toggle it on and off on demand.

cek994 12y ago

I had a very similar problem when I drowned my iPhone and switched my SIM to an old Windows Phone 7 I had lying around. If you have your old phone, you can disable iMessage while the SIM is still in it, which apparently works -- but if you don't, you're basically up a creek. I ended up changing the email address on my iCloud account. It baffles me that online iCloud doesn't have a dashboard for controlling this. Doesn't seem it should be that hard to unlink phone numbers from iMessage.

joshstrange 12y ago

There was a story posted the HN that was very similar to this semi-recently, in fact I though it was a repost until I saw this was published today. I can't seem to find the previous post, does anyone else remember that/have a link? Thanks!

PhilipA 12y ago
I submitted this one pretty recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7555146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7555146
WiseWeasel 12y ago
From 100 days ago, 398 points: iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced (blog.benjaminste.in) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7166955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7166955
- joshstrange 12y ago
  Apparently I need to re-evaluate my usage of the term "semi-recently", thank you very much for the link! I bow to your superior searching skills. I used the HN search site [0] if you don't mind me asking what did you use to find or did you just have it bookmarked? [0] http://hn.algolia.com http://hn.algolia.com
  - WiseWeasel 12y ago
    I posted in that thread, so I was able to find it in my comment history without too much digging.
  - kalleboo 12y ago
    Google "site:news.ycombinator.com imessage phone number" Google beats any site search I've used.

fossuser 12y ago

Even more frustrating, reading this just reminds me how much better the google voice solution to this problem is and it predated iMessage by several years. Google has just let it atrophy - then they introduced hangouts late (relative to other chat apps in the market) and still have not integrated the google voice features or pushed them with android. Does anyone who works at/worked at Google know why this happened? Were they trying to turn the telecoms into dumb pipes with the original Nexus and gizmo5 purchase, but when that failed just abandoned the idea? You'd think the success of whatsapp and facebook chat would make chat a priority. If people communicate using your platform they're more likely to use your account for other things.

ccozan 12y ago
To be honest, Hangouts of Google does a pretty nice job of SMS integration and multidevice communication. First: if a person has SMS and also a google account, they are just put toghether under the same hood, but they don't get mixed, just get sorted. An SMS goes associated with the number so I would not receive a SMS as a talk message or what ever. Second: if I am getting a message ( over Gtalk or Hangouts ) all my devices ( including Chrome) are receiving it in the same (relative) time. No stealing around, all my conversations are sync'd everywhere.
- voltagex_ 12y ago
  Not quite. I have a Nexus 4 and a Nexus 5. If I turn my 4 on, I'll get notifications (and sound/vibration) only on the 4, until I start using the 5 again. Strangely this doesn't seem to hold true if I use Hangouts on my computer (messages alert all devices)
w1ntermute 12y ago
Word on the street is that they're going to kill Google Voice soon and integrate its functionality into Hangouts. They've taken the first step by integrating regular SMS into Hangouts, so it can't be hard now. I hope it happens soon, but until then there are client-side hacks (such as XVoice+) that you can use to achieve the same functionality.

steven2012 12y ago

Wow, this has been going on for at least a year. I can't believe that Apple hasn't already fixed this problem, it really calls into question their commitment to doing the right thing.

kevando 12y ago
Yeah it's stupid issue but extremely easy to resolve. My messages went to purgatory for about 15 minutes. http://phandroid.com/2014/04/07/turn-off-imessage-iphone-to-android/ http://phandroid.com/2014/04/07/turn-off-imessage-iphone-to-...
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  Does that work if you've wiped and resold your iPhone without disabling iMessages on it first? The impression I've gotten is that Apple will still think you're signed in even though you no longer have the phone (and can't sign out).
- adampash 12y ago
  I've done all of that. The number is no longer associated with my Apple ID, but other iPhones still send messages to that number via iMessage — which means they go nowhere.
  - kevando 12y ago
    Well shit. Sounds like Apple has an issue clearing cache. In the hopes of actually solving your issue, I hate to suggest this, but try reconnecting your number to imessage (and make sure you get any new imessage texts), then properly turn off imessage from that device. The defacto unplug it plug it back in.
- sbilstein 12y ago
  Sometimes this process just doesn't work. I've switched to android twice (and back to iPhone) in the last year cause of phone breakages and the moving off of iMessage the second time was a nightmare.
- 12y ago

gdeglin 12y ago

Mashable wrote about this problem months ago: http://mashable.com/2013/09/16/imessage-problem/ http://mashable.com/2013/09/16/imessage-problem/ A lot of my friends have complained about this problem as well. I'm surprised Apple hasn't moved faster to come up with a solution. Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

MBCook 12y ago
They're not Apple customers anymore. It's not a problem (in that it's not effecting their customers, it IS their fault). The best way to get this fixed would probably be for iPhone users who lose the ability to message their friend to complain to Apple, not the former customer. Sad though. Apple is so good at customer service in many contexts. But sometimes they seem to decide on one of these seemingly purposeful blindspots and treat people terribly.
- unfunco 12y ago
  The people with iPhones are still Apple's customers, and it's their messages that are disappearing. That's a perfectly good case for a CAL. Suppose that someone tried texting someone for medical assistance (silly, I know...), and that message was not delivered because the recipient changed their phone but kept their number, is that the fault of the person that changed their phone or is it the fault of Apple for not being able to realise that people might someday want to change devices?
  - superuser2 12y ago
    >not being able to realise that people might someday want to change devices? They did realize it. There are two mechanisms for handling this issue - turning off iMessage in Settings before deactivating your iPhone, and calling Apple after deactivating your iPhone. Both are documented. There is no way for your iPhone to know it's been deactivated and still communicate with Apple. If anything it's the fault of the carriers for not providing Apple with an API hook for "this iPhone was just deactivated." Also SMS is many times more lossy than iMessage. I've had messages show up to my friends on AT&T several days after they were sent, and not all. SMS messages longer than the length limit almost always arrive out of order, and sometimes parts don't arrive at all. Relying on non-iMessage texting for medical assistance is stupid to begin with.

jamra 12y ago

There is (or at least used to be) an option on your iPhone that forces the messages to be sent and received over SMS rather than iMessage. I wonder if one could turn on that option on their old phone before switching numbers. There was a fairly recent change in how iMessages are handled. In one of the iOS updates, you can receive iMessage messages on numerous devices tied to your Apple ID such as your iPad. I wonder if that's where the bug comes from. The other option is to switch to Android at home and get new friends.

superuser2 12y ago
I wonder if one could turn on that option on their old phone before switching numbers. Yes, one can, and this is the correct and documented way to avoid this problem. Unfortunately, people don't generally think about it before asking their carrier to swap out phones on their line, and your iPhone has no way of knowing you intend to deactivate it.

mrcwinn 12y ago

For what it's worth, I switched to Android and did not have to pay Apple $20 to disable my iMessages, despite not having an active support contract. I did, however, have to do a quick Google search, log in to my iTunes account through the web, and de-register my Apple devices. The problem was solved relatively quickly and for free. This should be simpler, but I'm not sure how much easier Apple can make it. They can't make an iOS app to help you because you got rid of the iPhone. It seems strange to make an Android app to help you. That leaves the web. Better luck to you!

mikestew 12y ago
> This should be simpler, but I'm not sure how much easier Apple can make it. You have to keep in mind that your steps don't work for everyone. There is no definitive set of steps that consistently work. I say this is as someone who has gone back and forth between iOS and Android a couple of times. What worked last time doesn't necessarily work the next time.

jc4p 12y ago

I went through this last month when I switched to the Nexus 5, had no clue I wasn't getting messages until someone with an iPhone tweeted at me asking why I as ignoring them. However, all it took from me was a call to Apple's customer service, I told them I had just switched off my iPhone and no longer got texts from people with iMessage and they immediately sent me to a tech that fixed the problem for me. Have you been explaining it correctly when you call? All I said was "I had an iPhone until last week, switched to another phone but I'm still registered for iMessage" Edit: According to my phone I called 1-800-692-7753 (Which is just 1-800-MY-APPLE) and my call took 8 mins 25 seconds total. Not too bad of an experience.

kennywinker 12y ago
It's encouraging that they actually have the capability to fix the issue, but you really shouldn't have to call tech support to regain control of your phone number. When you sign up for iMessages they don't say "We take over your phone number and route all texts from iphones to it and you'll have to call tech support to make us stop!"
- jc4p 12y ago
  Oh of course, it's insanely annoying. It's not even something that crossed my mind since before transitioning to my iPhone I used to carry multiple phones on me and just switch SIMs around (I'm a mobile dev, not a drug dealer, I promise) I'm just saying that it's not hopeless, Apple hasn't done anything about it in years and from the blog it seems like the writer thinks they'll just never get text messages from iPhone users again, which is false. From what I understand, it's less of a deliberate "HAHA SCREW YOU" and more of a caching issue on their iMessage registration side. The removal of my number took around 24 hours to propagate to their services (e.g. if a person who didn't have a thread with me put in my number, it would show green not blue) and I had to have some friends delete our chat history since my iMessage-ness was cached on their phone. I think Apple only checks iMessage registration in pull format, e.g. when someone toggles iMessage on/off on their phone, rather than constantly checking it through some "does this phone have service" background test.

edgesrazor 12y ago

I ran into this issue 2 years ago when I dropped iPhone for Android - I seriously can't believe it's still a problem. Even following Apple's official KB article, it will still take a few days for all of your messages to start going through again.

enscr 12y ago

Whenever I look at the iMessage icon on my iPhone/iPad, I feel it had so much potential when it came out but Apple just squandered it like a brat. If only they had opened the gates on interoperability ..sigh ! Sometime back they were arrogant and brilliant, not just the former.

hert 12y ago

Even more of a disaster with iMessage group threads. I had a thread w/ two friends, and when I switched to my Moto X, I didn't realize that I was no longer receiving messages on the thread from ONE of them. Turns out, one of their iPhones recognized that it should start texting me, while the other's iPhone kept iMessaging me w/out delivering failure reports. So frustrating that I forced them to get WhatsApp!

ironghost 12y ago

Easy (yet long) fix: on iPhone - Disable iMessage from the settings menu. - Go back to messages and send a standard text message to the phone number. - Enable iMessage from the settings menu. Done.

JohnHaugeland 12y ago

I've been here for almost a year. It's not clear why this seems okay. "We've stolen contact for a year. We're working on it." Seems like anti-competitive behavior. Stopped buying Apple 100% immediately once I found out.

pmorici 12y ago

The easiest way to avoid this problem is to make sure you turn off iMessage on your iPhone before you switch devices then you don't have this problem in the first place. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3392014?start=15&tstart=0 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3392014?start=15&tstart...

nerdtalker 12y ago
As someone who regularly switches between Android and iPhone, this is the answer everyone is looking for. It's as simple as turning it off before you switch to a device which is SMS-only. Moreover, before you sell your device or give it away, make sure you turn iMessage off.
jbl 12y ago
When I switched from an iPhone to an Android handset, I found that I not only had to switch off iMessage, I had to switch it off while my SIM card was still in the iPhone. Switching iMessage off after the fact didn't seem to work.
- pmorici 12y ago
  Yes, you need to do it before porting your number.

shurcooL 12y ago

I find it interesting how so many people still find it acceptable in 2014 to be using a "phone number" as their id. It's a number you can't even pick yourself: you _pay_ to get a randomly assigned digits, at best with the ability to reroll (also not always free). To me, it feels like someone using an `@aol.com` email in 2014. Or a rotary phone.

btgeekboy 12y ago
The phone number is a backwards compatibility feature. We have modern ways of locating a user (see SIP, Email), but those won't be compatible with POTS. The use case here, Apple's iMessage, in fact allows users to use alternate methods of user lookup, including multiple email addresses. If you don't find it acceptable, what do you propose as an alternative?
- shurcooL 12y ago
  > If you don't find it acceptable, what do you propose as an alternative? So far, the best alternative for id that I've found is... Email address. It's highly available, free to create, and you can pick your own letters/numbers that are meaningful. It can even be your name. Definitely better than phone number digits at being an id that I can share with my friends or those who I want to be able to contact me. (For voice calls, I primarily use FaceTime Audio because they support email as id. But I also have skype, voip number for backwards compatibility, etc.)
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    Phone numbers are portable between providers, email addresses are not. So email addresses make worse identifiers (where consistency rather than encoded meaning is the important thing) than phone numbers. (Also, the "pay to get a randomly assigned number" isn't always true: my Google Voice number was free, and I got to ask for particular digits string to be included and got to choose from a list of numbers that met that requirement.)
retroafroman 12y ago

justizin 12y ago

frustrating, indeed. the short answer is, if you are in the know, and you switch from iphone to android, disable iMessage on your iPhone first. It would be great to see an interoperable solution replace iMessage, but for now, it is (purportedly) secure and often more reliable than text messaging. I still pay for an unlimited sms plan.

headShrinker 12y ago
> I still pay for an unlimited ams plan I just couldn't bring myself to be extorted 25 or 50 cents per text. Why is there no government investigation in to this? No class action? I thank Apple for at least allowing me to text the majority of my friends for free.

headShrinker 12y ago

> save the green vs. blue bubbles, which are in their own way a sort of weird social/status indicator Save your opinionated anti Apple rhetoric. The color coded indicator allows people to know which features are included in the service, or whether your text was delivered and read or in your case, not delivered...

kennywinker 12y ago
While color coding totally serves a useful purpose, it's also DEFINITELY used by some as a indicator of status or inclusion in a group. People are super tribal, and will use any indicators available to indicate inclusion or exclusion.
- dfc 12y ago
  Think different...
  - NathanCH 12y ago
    Oh cmon, how is this any different from Google Hangouts? Messages sent from Google Hangout's are green, and default SMS is grey.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      iMessage uses shading based on transport (SMS/MMS vs. iMessage) for both your messages and others, but from looking at my own mixed SMS/MMS/Hangouts threads, Google uses green for your outbound messages sent with Hangouts, and grey for your outbound SMS/MMS messages and all incoming messages (with "via SMS" and "via MMS" alongside the time display on in- and out-bound SMS/MMS messages.) So, to the extent that the Apple behavior can be seen as signalling in-group membership with color of messages, it is distinctly different from Google Hangouts, since the only person whose messages are colored to indicate delivery method in Hangouts are yours, not the ones you receive from others.
    - kennywinker 12y ago

prutschman 12y ago

Google Hangouts on my Android phone keeps bugging me to intergrate SMS into Hangouts, as well as to "confirm" my mobile number. My fear is that something analogous to the iMessage "purgatory" might happen, though I haven't heard of anyone experiencing it.

deong 12y ago
As of now, there's nothing to worry about. The problem with iPhones occurs because (1) Apple's implementation is apparently crappy, and (2) Apple tries to treat SMS and iMessage as just two identical channels through which a message can be received. You send a message to a person, not a phone number or iMessage account, and Apple figures out how to route it. The problem occurs when they guess wrong. Google isn't doing #2. The SMS integration with Hangouts is limited to just showing your SMS and IM messages in one view. When you send a message, you send it through one channel or the other explicitly. Google doesn't ever guess how you wanted to send it, so they can't guess wrong.
- prutschman 12y ago
  The part that concerns me with Hangouts is that it wants to know my mobile number for some reason. They say it's for discovery purposes. For now at least.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    If you're using Google apps on your phone, they already know your mobile number. I'm not sure what you're concerned about.
    - prutschman 12y ago
      Google as an organization has my mobile number from a variety of sources, but that doesn't mean I want to associate my mobile number with my Hangouts usage in such a way that other people with my phone number can automatically contact me via Hangouts.
- 12y ago

mwsherman 12y ago

IM and SMS are different ideas. SMS moves a message from one device to another. SMS also knows nothing about the receiving device or whether the message got there. IM (under which I include iMessage) is user-to-user, not device-to-device. It can know about the recipient and whether messages are received. Each of these things has advantages. SMS works because the phone network is always tracking a device. It is very addressable. The receiving device is mobile, rarely changes, and is singular. IM has a notion of sessions. The user signs off and on. It can travel over any IP connection. The device on which the user is addressable changes a lot. There may be multiple devices, making the definition of “delivered” a bit less deterministic. Conflating these two makes for a confusing mental model for the user, and for failures like this.

softinio 12y ago

I've been having the same issue and it ruined part of my vacation as people I was meeting up with on vacation thought I was ignoring their texts and we never met up. What adds insult to injury is that all ios devices are shipped by default with the setting set to not send by sms when user not found on iMessage. Apple should own up to this problem publicly and compensate users.

vasundhar 12y ago

1. Validation seem to happen when you send the first message to check if given number is associated with iMessage 2. Second time onward it only checks if the sender is in Data Network or not. 3. There is an option in the iMessage settings > Messages > "Send as SMS" if this option is not selected once the device/iAccount knows the other device is iPhone and you are on Data ... it just sends an iMessage. Turn "Send as SMS" so that it falls back to SMS if the destination is not available for iMessage.

K0nserv 12y ago

How can the engineering team be clueless on how to fix this? Now I admit that I don't know the inner workings of the iMessage protocol and servers, but presumably all that needs to be done is to disassociate the number with the Apple ID. If I were to guess this would involve dropping a row in a table somewhere.

benstein 12y ago

I went through this a few months ago and discussed on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7166955 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7166955 Here's my update: It's been about 4 months or so since I switched. Nothing I was able to do or Apple was able to do fixed the problem. I was able to put Messages into debug mode and I sent Apple a full debug log (Apple bug report #15966535). They marked the ticket as "Duplicate" and I was no longer able to view any updates. After about 3 months, most of the issue has resolved. The majority of group-texts work now; iPhones now send the whole thread is MMS not iMessage. It's still not 100% but pretty good. Most of my friends can send SMS without failures, but quite a few still get "iMessage failed" and have to "resend as SMS". I've completely given up trying to fix the problem. Just hoping the remaining iOS devices resolve themselves at some point, or Apple fixes in next update. <rant>Everyone thinks this is an Android problem that they can't message me anymore. Really tough to explain to the world that it's _their_ phone that's buggy.</rant>

dangoldin 12y ago

I ran into this too and ended up calling Apple. Their solution was to tell everyone who had my number to erase their iMessage history with me. Somewhat odd - I can receive individual texts from two people that have iPhones but if one of them sends a group text to both of us, I do not receive it.

izacus 12y ago

Well it seems that Apple has little incentive to fix this and have been dragging their feet: They're hoping that a brand new Android user will blame non-working SMS messages to their phone and return it for another iPhone. Just another lock-in behaviour from them.

rnovak 12y ago

I had the same issue, but I was able to still retrieve the messages via another apple device that was still connected to the iMessage service. I was then able to disassociate my number with the service. When I had my iPhone, I had originally linked both my email and my phone number to the same iMessage account, so fortunately I never lost messages. If it was tied to your email as well, you might be able to disable the service via another apple device.

jms703 12y ago

The only reliable fix I've seen for this is to have your friends remove and re-add your mobile number from their contacts.

cstrat 12y ago

I have read about these issues plaguing people. It is strange because whenever I have roamed overseas or have disabled data for whatever reason. People still can text me, albeit I am sure there is a delay between when they hit send and when I got the message. Friends of mine have moved from iPhone to Android, when I send them a message it tries with iMessage - and I get the message failure exclamation mark. It then resends as a text and doesn't try iMessage again for some time. Haven't really had the black hole experience yet...

vhost- 12y ago

Same story here. Switched to an android decide and no one could text me for months. Months! It's almost unbelievable.

harmonicon 12y ago

This happened to me when I got my android phone with a new number. When my friends with iPhones texted me, the text always shows up as iMessage and I would never receive it. The thing is, I have not owned ANY smartphone before this one. My guess was the previous owner of this number had an iPhone and registered for iMessage service. iMessage route sms through its own server it never reached my carrier's network. I tried to get help from Apple store technician, but since I am not an apple customer, past or present, employee did not see a need to help. Problem is I really liked that number. After 2 months of struggle I gave up and changed to a new number. I will admit I never liked Apple and do my best to purge iProducts from my life. But I guess you just cannot avoid being screwed, anyway.

_Simon 12y ago

This again? FFS RTFM...

rspeer 12y ago
Hey look, the new comment-approval policy totally fixed trashy low-effort comments on HN.
- dang 12y ago
  Please don't reply to trashy low-effort comments on HN with trashy low-effort comments on HN.

ahassan 12y ago

My friends and I have never ran into this issue switching from iOS to Android. The main thing to do is to disable iMessage on your old iPhone before you get rid of it; that should unregister it on Apple's servers. If you do that, then you should be unregistered unless you have another device hooked up (i.e. Mac).

george_ciobanu 12y ago

I have similar issues with an iPhone and iPad synced to the same account. Stuff is always out of sync.

benhansenslc 12y ago

I switched to an Android phone 3 weeks ago and I am also still not receiving texts from iPhones. Apple's customer support said the same thing to me as they did to you. They told me that one customer had to wait 40 days before they were fully removed from the system. I am just hoping that it gets fixed for me by the time 40 days has come around. I filled a complaint with the FCC at https://esupport.fcc.gov/ccmsforms/form2000.action?form_type=2000B https://esupport.fcc.gov/ccmsforms/form2000.action?form_type.... It is a form for complaints against wireless carriers for number portability issues.

JacksonGariety 12y ago

Why aren't they making sure there's an active iPhone number associated before delivering any iMessages? Obvious solution.

mwill 12y ago

I encountered this problem recently on a smaller scale. I disable iMessage for various reasons, but recently had to factory reset my iPhone, which led to iMessage being enabled. I completely forgot about it and after I remembered to disable it, I suddenly could no longer receive text messages from my friends with iPhones. I gave Apple a call and initially the only response I could get from them was "Just turn on iMessage" and general confusion about why I had it turned off in the first place. Eventually someone I talked to said they could fix it, and shortly after I started receiving messages again.

X-Istence 12y ago

Had a friend recently go through this. She called up Apple, had her number deregistered and about a day or two later everything started flowing correctly again...

sturmeh 12y ago

Is it conceivable that Apple are deliberately ignoring this issue as it does exactly what they would want? It punishes people who move away from their platform with social isolation. It's easy for them to overlook this issue and not put any effort into fixing it, because the investment would result in a better experience for everyone who switching away from Apple.

Bud 12y ago
No. This is not conceivable. In fact, Apple has never taken a single documented action which would be at all similar to this. If one thinks about it for just a moment, one can see the hilarity of even suspecting this. Apple has very consistently provided the best overall experience and service in the industry over the last 15 years. They have done this regardless of whether you are using one of their products (PC users who use iTunes) or their entire ecosystem of products. It strains credulity to think that Apple would attempt to punish a customer who is moving away from a given iPhone (perhaps even to a new iPhone!). That customer could very well still use several other Apple products for years or even decades in the future. You expect us to believe that Apple would antagonize that customer in a grade-school fashion, out of spite? It's just nonsense to even think this.

greggman 12y ago

A friend found this http://support.vodafone.com.au/articles/FAQ/How-to-deactivate-iMessage-if-you-re-switching-from-iPhone http://support.vodafone.com.au/articles/FAQ/How-to-deactivat... TLDR; Deactive iMessages on your iPhone before switching or go here if you don't have access to your phone. http://supportprofile.apple.com/MySupportProfile.do http://supportprofile.apple.com/MySupportProfile.do Sounds like that's not enough from reports below tho

e79 12y ago

Their support page makes it sound like they can just de-register iMessage with your account. http://support.apple.com/kb/ts5185 http://support.apple.com/kb/ts5185 A few comments here seem to suggest that this is a carrier or cellular infrastructure issue. It isn't! iMessage doesn't route over SMS-- that's the whole point. It routes to Apple's servers, which should be capable of doing a lookup to see if the number still has an associated iCloud or iMessage account.

NeliX4 12y ago

What's wrong with iMessage on Android app? http://imessageonandroid.com/ http://imessageonandroid.com/ Why this exact same issue is poppup up in HN every now and then...

NeliX4 12y ago
Sorry my fault. It's a scam.