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That is a lot of change to try new things lol. I am an iOS guy as well, last summer I went from i5, S4, HTC One to 5s.

Well I started working for a new company around the same time and was given a work phone. At the time, thought it was silly to carry around two iPhones and figured it gave me the chance to try out Android so I did.

Ended up coming back as I couldn't quite fit the Android devices into my personal world like an iPhone - too many family and friends on iPhones, things are just easier.
 
My wife and I are STILL not receiving messages from time to time. Apple really needs to work this out. We switch from iphone to android months ago.

Messages has been bugged since the beginning. I've had very much troubles with it so far. So frustrating every time.

Careful! God forbid a user complains about a bug in iOS... people will go from 'you're doing it wrong' to 'this is statistically insignificant since millions are ok' to 'you don't know what you are talking about'

IMO, there has been a dramatic drop in iOS quality starting with iOS 5. Siri, Maps, iMessage is not 100% there, neither is Photostream or any of the cloud services.
 
All you have to do is turn of iMessage before switching devices or contact apple support and explain that you want to deactivate iMessage. Its a very simple process.
 
My wife and I are STILL not receiving messages from time to time. Apple really needs to work this out. We switch from iphone to android months ago.

That's your problem. You shouldn't switch to Android in the first place, android tracks you, sends your information to remote servers, is totally unreliable too. Believe me, I've studied it. If you would've stayed on iPhone, this wouldn't happen. So, don't be blaming Apple. Blame yourself.

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Careful! God forbid a user complains about a bug in iOS... people will go from 'you're doing it wrong' to 'this is statistically insignificant since millions are ok' to 'you don't know what you are talking about'

IMO, there has been a dramatic drop in iOS quality starting with iOS 5. Siri, Maps, iMessage is not 100% there, neither is Photostream or any of the cloud services.

All of those seem okay to me... They all work perfectly. Instead of finding flaws constantly, try looking at what they do. You go code an Assistant that is amazing, a maps app, or a message service... I'd like to see how it comes out for you.

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I thought that if the iPhone is offline, the message is an SMS, am I'm wrong?

You're completely wrong. It'll be cached to apple servers as an iMessage until a set amount of time.

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After I called Apple and had them disassociate my number with iMessage I haven't had any issue getting text messages. It is an extremely frustrating problem when moving away from an iPhone.

Then don't move from iPhone. I don't see why you would in the first place. Android harvests your data... So stop complaining. If you hadn't switched, this wouldn't have happened.
 
iMessage works well for me with iPhone and iPad. I wouldn't dare think of switching my iPhone number to another platform.
 
That's your problem. You shouldn't switch to Android in the first place, android tracks you, sends your information to remote servers, is totally unreliable too. Believe me, I've studied it. If you would've stayed on iPhone, this wouldn't happen. So, don't be blaming Apple. Blame yourself.

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All of those seem okay to me... They all work perfectly. Instead of finding flaws constantly, try looking at what they do. You go code an Assistant that is amazing, a maps app, or a message service... I'd like to see how it comes out for you.

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You're completely wrong. It'll be cached to apple servers as an iMessage until a set amount of time.

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Then don't move from iPhone. I don't see why you would in the first place. Android harvests your data... So stop complaining. If you hadn't switched, this wouldn't have happened.
Unless that was a lot of sarcasm, blaming someone for switching to Android pretty much undermines anything else that might be said, no matter how much sense the rest of it might potentially make.

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iMessage works well for me with iPhone and iPad. I wouldn't dare think of switching my iPhone number to another platform.
That contributes to the discussion in some way?
 
My wife and I are STILL not receiving messages from time to time. Apple really needs to work this out. We switch from iphone to android months ago.

That's your problem. You shouldn't switch to Android in the first place, android tracks you, sends your information to remote servers, is totally unreliable too. Believe me, I've studied it. If you would've stayed on iPhone, this wouldn't happen. So, don't be blaming Apple. Blame yourself.

LOL really? I love Apple as much as the next guy, but what kind of reply is that? :rolleyes:
 
Usually when you sign in to something, you are expected to sign out when you’re done with it. And iMessage is completely different from any other messaging service prior to it in the fact that it does hijack your phone number to deflect special messages to it. So you'd think maybe there would be some extra steps involved in shutting it off before just blindly switching phones, but I guess no one else gets that.
All you have to do is turn of iMessage before switching devices or contact apple support and explain that you want to deactivate iMessage. Its a very simple process.
Clearly it's not always as simple as that as one or both of those things don't seem to work for various people. And there's where there is an actual problem.
 
Helped a friend get off imessage --

It was HORRIBLE. He did try to turn off iMessage on the iPhone and it still wouldn't unroute his number through iMessage. Finally after googling a LOT, we found a few obscure places in the iTunes account on the web account management. Pretty horrible process.
 
You know what's sad? I had this issue last year and they are just addressing this now. There could be a potential antitrust lawsuit in this somewhere. Punishing people for switching to android... and some people are going to think it's Android that's the problem.
 
... is that people are foolish enough to switch from iOS to anything else. Those same people aren't even smart enough to disable iMessage from the phone they leave. If you don't deactivate your iMessage from your phone and then sell it, guess what will happen? Your buyer gets all your iMessages. NOT smart at all. I've switched my phone twice from Apple to Apple and my girlfriend's iphone twice as well. We NEVER receive iMessages on our old phones--only on the new ones because I always disable iMessages from the old iPhones before activating it on a different iPhone. No problem whatsoever.
Who said anything about someone receiving your messages? That's not the issue as wiping your phone, which most people do, takes care of that, but apparently doesn't really take care of having Apple realize that you are no longer using iMessage associated with your phone number. And even disabling iMessage on the phone specifically before wiping it seems to not always do the trick either, which is still a problem in itself.
 
All you have to do is turn of iMessage before switching devices or contact apple support and explain that you want to deactivate iMessage. Its a very simple process

The whole point of this article is that Apple does not actually have a way to do this!

Yes, you can disable iMessage if you still have access to the device, but what if it's broken/lost/stolen/sold/given away?

Apple support doesn't seem to have anything in place.

In case people are wondering, doing it by Apple ID won't work - you don't need an Apple ID to activate iMessage.
 
You know what's sad? I had this issue last year and they are just addressing this now.
The even sadder part is that they aren't even really addressing it so far, they are just saying they know about it, but are still trying to figure it out after all this time.
 
That is not the case. A friend of mine did everything correctly and still has issues with text messages being lost.

To this day he cannot receive responses to group messages he sends to me and another friend. He now finally CAN receive text messages as long as it is one on one conversation.

-He DID turn off imessage before switching phones.
-He DID remove the phone from his online account.
-He DID turn off Find My Iphone ont he device.
-He DID call Apply and ATT. Apple aknowledged his problem is legitimate and they have no solution. ATT blamed Apple.

He still has the iphone and has experimented with a number of 'fixes' but nothing can eliminate the group messaging problem.

Group messaging is MMS. Is his MMS configured properly and working?
 
... is that people are foolish enough to switch from iOS to anything else. Those same people aren't even smart enough to disable iMessage from the phone they leave. If you don't deactivate your iMessage from your phone and then sell it, guess what will happen? Your buyer gets all your iMessages. NOT smart at all. I've switched my phone twice from Apple to Apple and my girlfriend's iphone twice as well. We NEVER receive iMessages on our old phones--only on the new ones because I always disable iMessages from the old iPhones before activating it on a different iPhone. No problem whatsoever.

The fact that people consider this a normal behavior is baffling. The real problem is that it's somehow legal for Apple to hijack your number and tie it into their system. I understand why it's done but there is no clear way of undoing it. This is not even remotely a normal user experience. SMS/MMS and iMessages should be entirely separate but somehow Apple is allowed to intertwine them altogether and prevent you from using your phone number to send text messages from any other device.

You know how I figured out solutions? I searched for them on the internet after already encountering the problem. Do you think it's acceptable behavior to expect the user to automatically know how to do this when they switch to a non-iOS device when it is not even remotely commonplace behavior? Expecting the user to just know something is asinine. I build and fix PCs, root Android, write code and have jailbroken iOS devices and still didn't know that I had to do this prior to ditching my iPhone. Even after following every step mentioned, the problem still wasn't fixed.

Blaming the user for a problem that is not even remotely user-oriented has to be one of the most asinine things I've ever heard. Apple hasn't provided any real fix for this bug because there is no benefit for them by solving it. Why assist people that are ditching their products?
 
This happens to me when I have to turn iMessage off temporarily. When I'm at a couple of venues, my iMessage texts won't send. If I switch it of and send good old-fashioned SMS, it works fine.

Except then I am a black hole for many senders until I turn it back on.
 
I think this issue furthers the idea that Apple needs to beef up iCloud.com (the site) and add a full "Account Management" option there with things like "iMessage phone numbers".

I get the appleID website exists, but it is next to worthless except for changing your password. It's nice having iCloud and your AppleID separate, but there needs to be a more robust online portal for managing account settings and preferences.
 
Can't believe nobody posted this buuuttttt...

Have those that know you to simply make sure they have SEND AS A TEXT if iMessage unavailable selected in their messaging settings.

Sheesh, really people!? I switch iPhones weekly, and never lose contacts!!!

This is the solution.

Everyone cried for an integrated messaging system. Apple provided it with iMessage. From what I've seen, most issues with it are simply a matter of user error - like this, leaving send as a text disabled. If someone is sending a message to an iMessage number that's now an Android phone, and it's being forced to send as an iMessage due to Send as a Text being turned off, what do you think is going to happen?

On Apple's part, they need to have a clearer set of instructions, as people are clearly too inept to sort it themselves. I'm fine pointing out an issue with Apple when it's a legitimate one, but the iMessage "issues" are almost all user error.
 
This is the solution.

Everyone cried for an integrated messaging system. Apple provided it with iMessage. From what I've seen, most issues with it are simply a matter of user error - like this, leaving send as a text disabled. If someone is sending a message to an iMessage number that's now an Android phone, and it's being forced to send as an iMessage due to Send as a Text being turned off, what do you think is going to happen?

On Apple's part, they need to have a clearer set of instructions, as people are clearly too inept to sort it themselves. I'm fine pointing out an issue with Apple when it's a legitimate one, but the iMessage "issues" are almost all user error.

This was among the solutions I tried and the problem still persisted. I had this enabled for months prior to even having the issue because I used it as a fallback for when iMessage was unavailable.
 
I had a friend switch just after iMessage launched and it was a PITA. Luckily he switched back after a couple months.

I had hoped the problem would be resolved by now, but my sister and her husband recently switched to the S5 and it's very sporadic whether the phone attempts to send iMessage or SMS. I'm generally okay because when I see the blue bubble, I know to hold down on it and choose "Send as SMS". If it's being terribly troublesome, I'll deactivate my own iMessage to send my flurry of texts and then reactivate my iMessage.
 
This happened to a friend but the iMessage still went through as an SMS automatically after it failed as an iMessage.

Perhaps the people who are affected have their phone number on other Apple devices (iPad, Messages on the Mac) causing the iMessage to look to be delivered as it was received on a device with authority for that number. That means it'll never resend as an SMS.

This could be verified by someone with this problem who has iMessage registered on another Apple device by disabling iMessage on it and seeing if the 'ghost' iMessages start getting resent as an SMS.
 
simple solution. don't switch to android. who said a company has to support their competition's devices? does amazon make prime available for apple tv?
 
When my brother switched to the S4, we had the same exact issue. He didn't receive my "Merry Christmas!" There was a kerfuffle, and the we both realized that he wasn't receiving the messages because they were still attempting to be sent with iMessage. This at first seemed very difficult to overcome. I deleted the phone number and tried again, no luck. But when I deleted his contact completely and added it once again, the problem seemed resolved. It has not occurred since.

EDIT: I have not had any other issues with iMessage. I am, overall, very happy with its performance.

Deleting the contact rebooting the phone and then texting the number with no contact worked for me as well, then I simply re-added the contact.

It is a conspiracy to make sure ppl who try to leave Apple's Echo-system have a hard time, and why should they care if your messages do not work after leaving iMessage, even though that is not the right attitude.
 
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