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iPhone 7/Plus Dealing with Group Texts

I

iTurbo

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 9, 2008
316
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Is there a way to have a choice about being invited/part of a Group Text? It seems to me like there is no choice for the end user.....you are pretty much part of it. This leads to the obvious uncomfortable/awkward situation of having to leave it.

I would think that there should be at least a choice for the person on the end of this. Am I missing something?
 
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The constant pinging on my phone is a huge pain with every single text. I would rather not be part of it.

For me, it's not work related, rather family. Hence the awkwardness. It's a long story.

Seems crazy that you don't even have a choice in the matter. A pop-up saying something like "Do you want to be a part of this Group Text?" with an obvious OK (permission) on your part would be nice. Should be required? What the hell?
 
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Group texts in iMessage are a nightmare. If you turn it off in settings, and somebody includes you in a group text, you'll get the initial message from the primary sender - and still get replies from the other unknown recipients.... but you won't know that the original text was to a group, so the second (or third or fourth etc) person replying will appear in your message que as a primary message just to you. It's a disaster.

For example, the group sender could send a pretty picture of a sunset to a group of people, but you've got group texts turned off so you don't know that the message was sent to a lot of other people. Then the next day, one of the unknown recipients to the group replies back saying "I love that!" - and you get a message in your iMessage que just from that person with a message saying "I love that!" And then you're scratching your head wondering WTF are they talking about. Love what?
So then you reply back to that person (whom you may not know) asking - and well you can see it becomes a cluster F%ck pretty quickly.

So don't turn Group Messaging off.

The answer to this hell is to keep Group Messaging On and be a man and Leave the conversation. And after you leave it, send a message to the contact that includes you in a group text to never include you in a group list.
That's all you can do. (And they'll forget and do it anyway). It's horrible (I think).
 
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I totally hate group texts - for so many reasons.

Anything beyond like 3 people, total, just is the worst IMO.

I silence them all.

Honestly you should be able to leave one discreetly if you choose to, and as said above, you really should be asked for permission to be included in the first place.
 
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For me, this has gotten to the point that I've decided to buy a cheap dumb phone for work. And a new number.

I still have my old number and iPhone 7, but this is so aggravating I am hoping to ditch that (or any smartphone) entirely very soon. It is an inescapable mess. I will be perfectly fine with just phone functionality.
 
iTurbo said:
Is there a way to have a choice about being invited/part of a Group Text? It seems to me like there is no choice for the end user.....you are pretty much part of it. This leads to the obvious uncomfortable/awkward situation of having to leave it.

I would think that there should be at least a choice for the person on the end of this. Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Is declining an invitation to join in the first place any less awkward than leaving the group? Either way, at some point you have to make it clear that you don’t want to be included.
 
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Banglazed said:
No choice but you can hide alerts if you swipe from right to left. This will mute it whenever you get a new message.
Click to expand...
Not sure why this reply is getting ignored, as it’s a very good answer to the problem of a phone always buzzing at you (and the group won’t know).
 
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I have had to be rather blunt with one of my friends about including me in his group texts. Explained that texts is how my customers contact me and getting 20-30 group texts in a day is horrible.
 
noSpeed said:
Always shocked when I see someone using iMessage or SMS. They're so limited in functionality.
Click to expand...

When the only functionality you need is... "Hey, is this the right yogurt to buy?" <snap pic> then why bother with something that has "more" functionality?
iMessage meets the need of most people quite well, and for the rest, well there are other options
I'm always shocked when someone doesn't use iMessage
 
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noSpeed said:
Always shocked when I see someone using iMessage or SMS. They're so limited in functionality.
Click to expand...
Or just simple to use for a lot of folk who dont need\want anything further. Likes of my parents\in laws who can just text from their phones to the rest of us who are all on iPhones from the standard messaging app without having to remember to go into a different app and as long as their message is sent and they see them from other people thats all that matters.

Even for myself that is pretty technical when it comes to phones its a pain in the backside when i get all my messages in the messages app on my phone with the exception of two group chats in the main that i have to go into a different app for. In fact it was only 18 months ago i had any need to use Whatsapp and managed fine without it.
 
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