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Apple Customer Support Claims Apple Stymied by Phone-Switching iMessage Glitch

anubis72 said:
Heaven forbid anyone uses their phone for its intended purpose and CALL someone rather than rely on an instant messaging service if the issue is urgent...:rolleyes:
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Yeah, seriously, if there are problems using cars because car manufacturers haven't figured something out we can just simply use bicycles, they still get the job done.
 
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anubis72 said:
Heaven forbid anyone uses their phone for its intended purpose and CALL someone rather than rely on an instant messaging service if the issue is urgent...:rolleyes:
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Because somehow you're supposed to know that the message you send won't be received by the person on the other end?

This level of logic is astounding.
 
Friends and family will always ask my why I turn this off, and my messages are green and not blue. I had a problem with my messages disappearing once and they were important client messages, never again.
 
I had this exact problem a few weeks ago when I swapped my 4s for a Nexus 5. I know blasphemous. The issue seems to be rooted in having iMessage activated on other devices. I could only receive texts properly after turning iMessage off on both my iMac and my iPad.
 
The Phazer said:
iMessage was always a fundamentally flawed idea. No wonder it's gone wrong.
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Ironically, coming from a company that claims to get everything done RIGHT the first time which turns out to be a problem. Apple needs to shut up about claiming to want to not rush into things and get it right. There are other things besides iMessage they haven't gotten right the FIRST time.
 
I had this problem. Once when I switched phones, and next when I ported my family's number. Terrible. Apple provided no help and the service providers couldn't help as they rightly pointed out it was an Apple/ IPhone/ iOS issue. Apple really should have thought about this.
 
A lot of people here don't seem to know what the actual issue is and why this happens. Let me try and explain.

When someone with an iPhone sends a text message to a phone number, that iPhone checks with Apple to see if that number is registered with iMessage. If it is, that message is sent as 3G/4G/Wi-Fi data, to Apple servers, and not your telephone company. From there, Apple forwards your iMessage to the recipient. If the phone number isn't registered with iMessage, that message is sent as Cellular data, to your telephone company, where they send the message as a text message to the recipient.

Now the problem is, when someone switches from iPhone to Android, Apple still thinks your phone number is registered with iMessage. So when someone with an iPhone sends a text message to your phone number, Apple intercepts the message before it gets a chance to get to your phone company. So your message gets forwarded as an iMessage, and delivered to an iPhone that no longer exists. Your telephone company didn't even see the text message in the first place.

The bigger problem is that if you no longer have access to your old iPhone for any reason, Apple does not have a procedure to disable this from happening. The only way I've seen it done is when you call Apple Support, and they revoke your iMessage certificate. However, it seems this isn't an official procedure, as most Apple Support technicians are unaware of this.

What I think should be done is when you login to iCloud via www.icloud.com, there should be a 'Messages app' where you can access your iMessages stored in iCloud, as well as change Messages settings, such as disabling iMessage.

Hope that clears things up.
 
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iMessage has been a disaster for me from the get-go. I disabled it a long time ago.

I think this is one of the chinks in Apple's armour, exacerbated by their explosive growth over the past few years. This, along with cloud services/sync, and multiple users per device.
 
andycarver said:
This is not a glitch. Senders are sending to Apple ID instead of number.

See guy who deleted contact ( I bet he deleted the email address too)
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Incorrect. The issue is that Apple's iMessage servers are telling other iPhones that a person who has moved away from an iPhone is still activated to use iMessage, causing the other person's phone to send the message as an iMessage and the recipient never receiving it as their new device does not support iMessage.
 
ryhu said:
You can deregister your device from iMessage at here. Login with you Apple ID and click the arrow next to your device and deregister it. That will stop other devices from attempting to contact you via iMessage. To be as thorough as possible you should have your contacts create new text threads.

Hope that helps :)
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did not work for me.
 
resonantmedia said:
In my case I use Google Voice. Despite having iMessages set to send and receive exclusively from/to one of my AppleID aliases, my contacts still occasionally receive iMessages or SMS from my device phone number. Which no one needs to know, and really confuses them.
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Another google voice user here with the same problem. It confuses and even worse, *annoys* others when they random get a different phone number from me.

Tomorrow is the shutdown day for third party google voice apps, but the silver lining in this cloud is that the iOS version of Google Hangouts looks like it has real potential to be what iMessage wanted to, but apparently never will be.

I think Hangouts is going to catch on like wildfire and just leave iMessage in the dust. As soon as Hangouts integrates GVoice, I'll never have a reason to use any iMessage or SMS or anything else ever again.
 
I've personally found iMessage to be more reliable than my carriers texts going through.

On another note, I switch pretty frequently between Android and iPhone, and I always have this problem. What works for me when going from iPhone to Android is signing out of iMessage on EVERY APPLE DEVICE I own. IPad, iPhone, iMac, and MacBook Pro.

Then my texts work perfectly.

Yeah, it's not ideal to have to do this, but you only have to do it once after you switch, and then the problem is gone.
 
reden said:
Friends and family will always ask my why I turn this off, and my messages are green and not blue. I had a problem with my messages disappearing once and they were important client messages, never again.
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SMS is actually less reliable from a technological perspective. iMessage informs the sender of delivery. SMS by its nature does not guarantee timely delivery or any delivery, nor does it inform the sender if or when a message was delivered.
 
Apple CS know sod all, they know zip, nada, less than you do about the development of Apple products and software. This is a trolling click bait post.

iMessage fix for any/all issues:

1: sign out of your Apple ID in iMessage settings on all devices and disable iMessage

2: change the Apple ID password

3: check your account profile and remove all devices

4: if you want to use iMessage again, set this up on all devices starting with your iPhone.

I do think that Apple should have a simpler way to disable/remove your mobile number from iMessage via their website. Simply login with your Apple ID then select the mobile number you want removed, simple.

Myself? I change my iPhone and iPad annually and have had no issues that couldn't be fixed by the above. I use iMessage on, iPhone 5S, iPad Air, iPad retina mini, Mac mini, iMac and a MacBook Pro. I have the same custom tone set for messages on all devices and it's rather spectacular when I get a message when I have all of them together.
 
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I found a solution. Don't switch. Stay put because iPhone is the most advanced phone in the world. Nowhere else can you get Maps that are as accurate. Nowhere else can you get a standardized keyboard that will allow you to punch individual letters one at a time when typing and do nothing else. No other phone has the ability to take photos by just pressing one button. Simplicity... for people who do not like options. Options make things confusing. No other phone has cool icons... yes, a sea of icons. It is revolutionary. It is like an iPod Touch that you can make calls on.
 
Nem Wan said:
SMS is actually less reliable from a technological perspective. iMessage informs the sender of delivery. SMS by its nature does not guarantee timely delivery or any delivery, nor does it inform the sender if or when a message was delivered.
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Factually wrong, those are all in the SMS spec.

The iPhone doesn't ask the carrier for delivery reports, but that's Apple's fault for the poor quality SMS app and some US carriers not implementing international standards correctly.
 
its a Apple problem..

If they associate iMessage with phone number, then there should also be an a way to unassociate it too.

every you backup to iTunes, it should ask you to disassociate the phone number with iMessage..

If the user continues, then it just re-assosiates anyway, but people would backup their phones anyway to itunes.

SMS may be un-reliable but at least it doesn't use data... You can mark as mark Read receipts in iOS so the user will receive a popup. Its happened to be more than once..

Which i just ignored :/ But that's my problem
 
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irnchriz said:
Apple CS know sod all, they know zip, nada, less than you do about the development of Apple products and software. This is a trolling click bait post.

iMessage fix for any/all issues:

1: sign out of your Apple ID in iMessage settings on all devices and disable iMessage

2: change the Apple ID password

3: check your account profile and remove all devices

4: if you want to use iMessage again, set this up on all devices starting with your iPhone.

I do think that Apple should have a simpler way to disable/remove your mobile number from iMessage via their website. Simply login with your Apple ID then select the mobile number you want removed, simple.

Myself? I change my iPhone and iPad annually and have had no issues that couldn't be fixed by the above. I use iMessage on, iPhone 5S, iPad Air, iPad retina mini, Mac mini, iMac and a MacBook Pro. I have the same custom tone set for messages on all devices and it's rather spectacular when I get a message when I have all of them together.
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nope. doesn't fix going from an iPhone to an Android device. I tried all the above and then some... this is just an Apple issue that Apple needs to fix.
 
Noiseboy said:
And I have never had any trouble with it, not frustrating at all.
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I don't have cancer so nobody else must have cancer.

Does that help put into perspective just how rediculous this comment is? For those that don't have the bug - great sit down and enjoy. But it is a real problem for others.
 
ouimetnick said:
smithrh said:
Noiseboy said:
And I have never had any trouble with it, not frustrating at all.
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Therefore, it works for everyone and all of the negative posts here are fiction, right?
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No, the user is just sating that they have not experienced any issues using iMessage. They didn't say anything about the problem being fictional.
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It's clear his point was lost on you. He is saying the user's post (in which they stated that they personally have not experienced the issue) didn't add to the point of the thread, "Apple Customer Support Claims Apple Stymied by Phone-Switching iMessage Glitch".
 
usarioclave said:
Is your iPhone still active? Did you wipe it before you got rid of it?
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I still have the device and it is active now because I returned the android phones I was trying. What I wanted to do was go between my iPhone and Nexus 5 and rely on SMS. But I couldn't get my number disassociated with iMessage no matter what I tried. And I have spent many a hour searching and trying solutions that didn't help me out
 
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