Apple's Messages Offers Free Texting With a Side of iPhone Lock-In

itwbennett writes "Who doesn't love free text messages? People who try to transition from an iPhone to any other phone, that's who. Apple's Messages app actively moves conversations away from paid text messages to free Messages. Very convenient until you want to leave your iPhone and switch back to plain old text messages because suddenly you'll be unable to receive text messages from your iPhone-toting friends. There's an obscure workaround, and Samsung, which has a vested interest in the matter, has a lengthy guide to removing your iPhone as a registered receiver of Messages . But the experience is just annoying enough that it might be the kind of thing that would keep someone from making a switch — and that's when it starts to feel like deliberate lock-in, and not so much like something Apple overlooked."

Comments

WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of bullshit story is this? If you move away from your iPhone, guess what, you won't get iMessages. You'll still get text messages because yes, the iPhone falls back to that when an iMessage doesn't send.

Re:WTF

[paxprobellum]

It's not "by default" - it's just because they already have a iMessage window open with you. This whole "article" sounds kinda "contrived".

Re:WTF

[93 Escort Wagon]

And any other iOS user wont be able to send you txts as they will be attempting via iMessage by default.

As long as the "fall back to SMS if iMessage fails" setting is on, then there's no problem even in this case. The iMessage will fail, and then Messages will resend it as a text message without any intervention needed.

I guess having to look at the settings of a phone is pretty "obscure" though.

Re:WTF

[93 Escort Wagon]

Specifically: Settings -> Messages -> Send as SMS

Note if iMessage is not enabled, this setting will not be available (duh).

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong - you can go back and forth between SMS and iMessage in the same thread. No deleting anything.

Messages.app now figures out when outgoing messages aren't delivered to an iMessage recipient, then resend automatically as an SMS.

Re:WTF

[noh8rz10]

no. this whole thing makes no sense. when I text a number 213-555-2232 the text message goes to that number. if it's an iphone then it goes through apple's imessage server and appears as a blue bubble. if it's a samsung it goes through the cell provider network and shows up as a green bubble. it's completely transparent. if you have an iphone but then port your number to a samsung, then my bubbles become green instead of blue. completely illogical.

Re:WTF

[noh8rz10]

there's a setting "send as SMS" which is lableed "Send as SMS when iMessage is unavailable. Carrier messaging rates may apply." it's not that hard to find - in the settings menu go to Messages and there it is. also it's on by default, I never even noticed it or thought about it.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that setting is turned OFF by default here.

It's unclear why someone wouldn't want their messages to fall back to SMS, instead of Apple's preferred solution of having the delivery fail.

Re:WTF

[Culture20]

But the iPhone returns an error message to the iPhone user and asks if they want to resend as a text. This makes the iPhone software look like rubbish.

Re:WTF

[akgooseman]

No, you won't get those messages. As an former iPhone user who recently switched to Android I will attest to the fact messages from your friends who use iOS go into a black iMessage hole. The messages are not forwarded out of iMessage to a traditional text message. The iPhone must be reconfigured to opt out of iMessage before text messages will be delivered to a non-iOS phone.

iMessage fails over to text ONLY if you're using an iOS device. It doesn't fail over, as you might expect, if your mobile number moves to a non-iOS platform. It's a total pain in the ass. I can only believe it's designed this way to promote vendor lock-in.

Re:WTF

[93 Escort Wagon]

I agree it should be on by default - however, people being what they are, I'm sure in that case we'd have read at least one Slashdot story where Joe Blow screams about his unexpected $100 SMS bill because he didn't notice there wasn't a data connection and he sent 100 text messages while on vacation in Mexico.

Re:WTF

[nurb432]

It did not in my case, but i did admit that i had this problem a while ago. Perhaps its not as brain-dead as it was back then.

Re:WTF

[Parafilmus]

As long as the "fall back to SMS if iMessage fails" setting is on, then there's no problem even in this case. The iMessage will fail, and then Messages will resend it as a text message without any intervention needed.

Alas, the SMS fallback doesn't work properly. Group messages always fail silently, regardless of the setting.

This is easily repeatable, if you have three iPhones. Try it yourself!

1. Disable iMessage on phone C, but leave it enabled on phones A and B.
2. Send a group message from phone A to phones B and C. It will fail silently. The message will never be received by phone C.

Re:WTF

[Desler]

Not if you enable SMS fallback. It's simply just resent as an SMS.

Re:WTF

[Desler]

Then tell your friends to turn on the SMS fallback. The setting is been there forever.

iMessage fails over to text ONLY if you're using an iOS device.

That's total bullshit. I have iMessage turned on with SMS fallback and I text message people on android phones all the time.

Re:WTF

[ceoyoyo]

No. This story is stupid. If you leave your number associated with your iPhone, and your iPhone signed into iMessage, other iPhones will try to send you iMessages (they'll give up and send regular texts after a little bit). There are multiple, simple ways to sign your number out of iMessage, leaving it a regular text receiving number.

Re:WTF

[ceoyoyo]

Just disassociate your number from iMessages. It's not hard. The article in the summary mentions half a dozen ways to do it, only one of which requires your iPhone. What do you want Apple to do, hire some psychics so they know when you switch phones?

Re: WTF

[kqs]

So, as long as all of your friends turn on an obscure option (which is off by default) you won't be locked in. What could go wrong?

Re:WTF

[Albanach]

It's not "by default" - it's just because they already have a iMessage window open with you. This whole "article" sounds kinda "contrived".

So for every one of your friends that you text and who uses iOS, it will be by default. When I think about how often I text someone new, compared to how often I exchange texts with someone I have previously interacted, this would be an awful lot like 'default' to me.

Re: WTF

[MidnightBrewer]

No, their iMessage app will resort to traditional SMS to send the message. No lock-in. This is a non-story, and only serves Samsung for the plug.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Can I point out that what you're saying is "just do something that though isn't difficult, should still be unnecessary and doesn't behave like one would expect". Good software design dictates that yes, you save the user money by using the free messenger, but if it fails, pop up a notification asking if they want to send it anyway with a paid for option. Failing silently in this way and requiring you to go to a hidden option (hidden option is any option not on the main user screen), is just piss poor design. But then again, Apple has often failed the "good design" test. For example, the ipod nano that you had to enter apples own version of Morse code to skip a track.

Re:WTF

[Blaskowicz]

wow so iphone users secretly recognize their peers with the use of blue bubbles, wtf is that. It's a really really huge conspiracy. Get turned down for a job, ot your date ran away after you text that you're waiting for her.. that's because you didn't have the blue buble.
If you leave your iphone and get green bubbled then you will lose your rank and secretive social status. Welcome to the underclass!

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny.

The page title is "Verizon Tabs: How do I turn off iMessage on my old iPhone before I switch to my new Samsung device?"

So, when someone switches away from an iPhone, they should just know that before they switch, they should check around and make sure they do it right, like check that people with an iPhone can still send them SMS messages once they get their new phone. I can picture it now, your mom is switching away from her iPhone and say asks"Do I have to do anything to make sure people with an iPhone can still send me messages?" Seems like a common sense to ask huh?
These are people that switched phones probably 10 times over the last 20 years and never had to make sure they logged onto a web site or did some some combination of settings on their old phone first to make sure people could still send them messages. I guess we should all be psychics and just know we have to check iMessage settings before we switch. What else should people check now that you have perfect hind-sight vision of this issue.

Re:WTF

[the_B0fh]

Are you really that much of an idiot? Using two colors to differentiate between a SMS and a non SMS message is simple and logical.

And you go all crazy on us. How do you function in the real world?

Re: WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Never go full retard.

Re:WTF

[DeSigna]

Well lets see. If they try and message you after you've gotten your new droid/winphone/etc, they'll eventually get an error, if the previous conversation hasn't expired (expiry seems to take somewhere between an hour and a day, probably depending on network conditions). If it's expired and you're no longer on iMessage, or if they've had an error and try to send another message, it will go via SMS. Nothing default about it. Except in the case of an unexpired conversation, it's transparent.

If I want to remove a phone permanently from my iMessage account, I go into my iMessage settings, select the number and remove it. It's even easier if you own the device and it's part of your support profile, you can just do it through the Apple website. I own an iPad but my iPhone is employer-issue.

This iMessage stuff has been part of the iOS environment for literally years. This article is hyperventilating over nothing and is worthy only of a weary eye-roll.

Re: WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

My iPhone will not allow me to send group iMessage messages unless all recipients can receive them (via iMessage). It makes you use SMS instead.

If you tell Apple that you want to receive iMessage messages on your phone but them disable it on the phone, then iMessage still works for groups, but you won't get them. It's like redirecting you email to /dev/null and then bitching when nobody emails you anymore.

Re:WTF

[ColdWetDog]

You must be a blast at parties....

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

yes. he should call all the possible people and future contacts who may have iphones to go and turn something off. you're head of the class, but you got there on the short bus smarty pants. you go and do that, since from your asshole attitude you probably only have 2 friends - your right hand and your mom.

as far as your bullshit comment on bullshit, the only thing that's total bullshit is what is in your braincase, which is filled with shit, not allowing you to think, but allowing you to spew arrogant asshole bullshit.

the case presented here, where a user has an iphone which registers its number with imessage, is replaced with a non-iphone. the number then remains registered with imessage until you manually remove it from there. when other people's iphones connect to imessage, it tells them you're an iphone user, even though you no longer are. at that point, the message is not retried by sms, and indeed goes into a black hole. such as in the exact use case of the guy you are replying to - the use case in the article.

the fact that it works on your iphone is great, however your specific case is not what everyone here is talking about. fortunately we all have the comprehension skills to understand the use case in the summary - you don't. who gives a fuck it works for you in a different scenario? that's not what we're all talking about. now, why don't you go back to texting your mom from your iphone - just wipe the lotion off your second friend first. idiot. seriously - if you don't understand something, tone it down. a reply that is arrogant and rude is especially funny. let me guess - you act the bully on the internet but are actually quite awkward and anti-social in real life? you are an asshole to people proactively - tell them to fuck off first before they reject you? kill yourself. kill yourself now. no one likes you, no one wants you, you are a stupid loser who should stop trying to get through the next day w/o meeting new people. we don't want you, we don't like you. kill yourself. do it now - stop suffering. all the happy people meeting smiling and fucking and enjoying life - we all hate you, because you are a loser. go away.

Re:WTF

[DamnOregonian]

The problem I've experienced, is that I have an iPad using iMessage, and had an iPhone.
My phone number was attached to my iMessage account.
Once I no longer had an iPhone, anyone who previously sent me texts via iMessage (my phone number was still attached) went to my iPad. It's partially my fault for never using it, but it weighs approximately 35kg and feels like trying to hold my 46 inch TV in my hands. Though it is bloody beautiful.
Anyway, the message didn't fail, because it was successfully delivered (doh). It's not quite a bit bucket, but given my non-use of my iPad (and failure to turn the damn thing off), it may as well have been a bit bucket.
I had to disassociate my phone number from my iMessage account, which I could fortunately do from my iPad once the problem was identified.

This is actually somewhat stupid behavior, but I see little way around it other than notifying people that they must manually remove their phone number from their iMessage account if they switch to a non-iMessage phone.

Re: WTF

[WebCowboy]

That is what confuses people. An iphone user sends a text to a phone number so they expect it to go to a phone number but that is not what happens by default.

The default behaviour once your phone number is hijacked by imessage is for the iphone to look up your phone number to find the apple account it is attached to then route the message to ANY device associated with that account.

As a result, if the recipient has any device associated with their apple account and they do not remove their phone number from their apple account imessage will NOT fall back to sms...it will consider the message sent!

Some examples of the confusion of crapple iMESSage default behaviour for the poor ex iphone users I know:

* wife replaced iphone with a Note 3. 3 days later she turned on her ipad and several hijacked texts sent to her phone number showed up there...on her wifi only device

* my niece upgraded from ipgone 3gs to a galaxy and gave the old deactivated/no-sim iphone to her son as a toy after wiping it. For the next few days her son was getting many of the texts that were supposed to go to her phone number

* A coworker received a blackberry z10 to replace an iphone and he started getting texts on his macbook air.

This is maddening insane default behaviour. Apple is supposed to be intuitive and this is the opposite. No sane person would expect to have a text sent to a phone number to get sent to some other random device that has no phone connection when they switch phones but that is what happens. Imessage is not as smart, simple or as sensible as you suggest it is.

Re:WTF

[serber]

People seem to think this is a conspiracy, or deliberate attempt to break things for those switching, but honestly... how do they expect Apple to know that you've moved the sim card to a new device, and that you haven't just turned your phone off because you're on a plane/etc?

Re: WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey frothing lunatic! Guess what! It's not default behavior. When you set up any new iDevice it asks whether you want it to be the recipient of iMessages, and prompts you to choose which accounts. So deselect the phone number from the list.

If you selected the phone number from the list, and now you want it to magically behave differently without you telling it to, well, what can I say. You're used to the way Apple things Just Work. Throw a non-Apple device into the pool and things stop Just Working. So yes, you have to start using your frothing lunatic brain again, and go in and CHANGE THE SETTING in your other devices.

If you can't handle that, well ... Cry me a river.

Re: WTF

[multimediavt]

Yes, because Apple hides these feature descriptions in out of sight places called public websites. I'm sorry if you didn't rtfm. Why is that a problem for anyone but those stupid enough to buy and use a device without reading or knowing how it works?

http://www.apple.com/osx/apps/...
http://www.apple.com/ios/messa...

I love how stupid people get mad at others when they do something stupid.

Re:WTF

[multimediavt]

As long as the "fall back to SMS if iMessage fails" setting is on, then there's no problem even in this case. The iMessage will fail, and then Messages will resend it as a text message without any intervention needed.

Alas, the SMS fallback doesn't work properly. Group messages always fail silently, regardless of the setting.

This is easily repeatable, if you have three iPhones. Try it yourself!

1. Disable iMessage on phone C, but leave it enabled on phones A and B. 2. Send a group message from phone A to phones B and C. It will fail silently. The message will never be received by phone C.

How did you "disable" iMessage on phone C? Was wifi disabled on the device you sent from? If wifi was on it will try to keep sending to phone C via wifi until it times out. Someone in the thread earlier pointed out that it may take up to a day for the error to get thrown. Now, that may be your cell provider and not iMessage. I do have multiple iDevices so I will test your theory this weekend. I have gotten delayed messages and delayed outbound failures but those happened with my cell carrier before I had an iPhone so it would be difficult to impossible to tell where the fault may lie. Given the size and number of Apple data centers and how cheap AT&T and Verizon are on infrastructure I would blame them for technical glitches like this for SMS than Apple, in my experience.

Re:WTF

[AmiMoJo]

That's fine if you know about it, but most people don't since there is no warning on the app or provided in the box with the phone. Most people's experience will be that their SMS messages stop working and are with lost in a black hole or delivered to some random device.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of bullshit story is this? If you move away from your iPhone, guess what, you won't get iMessages. You'll still get text messages because yes, the iPhone falls back to that when an iMessage doesn't send.

Couple things:

If you read the linked articles, you'll find that there are times when even after switching off iMessage on the old phone,
logging out of iMessage, changing your appleid password, and ensuring that your phone number/old phone is no longer
registered on the apple servers, other iPhones will STILL try to send texts via iMessage.

The only solution then is to have them delete your contact out of their phone (and thus all text conversations)
and then recreate the contact.

Being generous, I'm going to call it a bug. A very very annoying one to be sure.

I know this, since I do tech support for one of the phone companies, and have walked people through all of the above
steps, and have it fail, until the last part.

People switching from iPhone to something else, generally don't realize this, and the stores unfortunately are not much help.

I've also had it where they did all that, less delete the contacts, it worked for a bit, then the messages started going back via iMessage.
(that was a serious WTF call)

Re:WTF

[angel'o'sphere]

So have I, however trying to understand the other posts. It seems if you once had an iPhone and remove the SIM and then put that SIM into another phone (non iOS) all your friends iMessages/iPhones believe you are still reachable via iMessage and their iPhones don't realize that they need to send the message as text message.

Re:WTF

[angel'o'sphere]

Erm, honestly?
My device sends an iMessage to +49 0111 987654321
The above number never handchakes with the Apple Server telling it it has received the message. After a reasonable timeout, like with eMails, the sender should get an "MESSAGE UNDELIEVERABLE RECEIPT" ... and the senders iPhone should send the message automatically (or configureable on request) again as SMS, as it does with other iPhone users, who are not reachable via internet, ANYWAY!

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

I have had friends switch and they went to SMS. In fact twice that is how I found out they moved from Phone to Android. And for the record, I didn't know you could turn off fallback (read I never turned it on either).

Re:WTF

[Grizzley9]

Or due to the fact that many providers are not charging for texts and going to data only (at least in the US), iMessages served part of their purpose. WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc have all sent a death knell to the charging for text messages. With most people's plans today (again in the US), iMessage is not needed and can be turned off.

Re: WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad someone posted this! Apple screwed up IMO. Its a huge systematic telecommunications design flaw... If it was intentional they should be sued for antitrust because they shouldnt override sms by default. At a minimum its incompetence.

Re: WTF

[MrEdofCourse]

Everything you described is NOT default behavior. The default behavior is for iMessage not to be on. If you have an iPhone and don't turn on iMessage then texting works just as normal.

To be clear, you have to actively assign your phone number to iMessage, and then assign email addresses and devices to that account.

The whole point of iMessage is to disassociate your phone service as the controller of your SMS and have the control be given to iMessage. This is in part so that you CAN send and receive texts on things like your MacBook over WiFi with no cell connectivity and all transparently.

Sure, I can see how it may be confusing for people who stick their heads in the sand and wave their hands in the air when it comes to reading instructions, but changing the way the system works to accommodate the ignorant isn't the answer.

That's like blaming Google hosted email for hijacking a domain's email.

Why did your wife's iPad get the text message? Because she configured it to do just that. Same goes for your coworker's MacBook Air. As far as your niece goes, the phrase "after she wiped it" is false.

This comes from someone traveling in another country right now who just had to send several iMessages from my MacBook Air that would've cost $$$ in international texting had Apple not set things up the way they did.

Re:WTF

[egranlund]

The problem with that is it's not "failing silently". The message is sending and the phone is just seen as off because it hasn't been disassociated with your Apple account.

Though, I'm sure there must be way to test for this...

Re: WTF

[Parafilmus]

If you tell Apple that you want to receive iMessage messages on your phone but them disable it on the phone, then iMessage still works for groups, but you won't get them. It's like redirecting you email to /dev/null and then bitching when nobody emails you anymore.

That's exactly what its like. But if you ever want to switch to a non-Apple phone, you have no other option. There is no way to "sign out" from iMessage.

I switched to a Samsung months ago, and some of my iPhone-using friends STILL see my number as "blue," and try to send me iMessages.

The only reliable way to sign out from iMessage is to get a new phone number.

Re:WTF

[Parafilmus]

You can just switch iMessages off in phone C's settings. Or transfer the SIM from phone C into non-Apple phone.

Basically, the problem is that SMS-fallback doesn't work for group messages. So iPhone users can't send group messages to former iPhone-users.

It's not an SMS-delivery problem. Phone A never sends an SMS. Phone A sends only a "blue" message to the entire group, and never notices that phone C didn't receive it.

I switched away from IOS months ago, but my iPhone-using friends still see my number as "blue," and try to iMessage me. Individual messages fallback to SMS, but group messages just fail silently. There is no way to "sign out" of iMessage.

Re:WTF

[Parafilmus]

if you have an iphone but then port your number to a samsung, then my bubbles become green instead of blue. completely illogical.

That's what you would -expect- to happen. But when you port your number to samsung, your friends will actually continue to send blue bubbles to your number. Therein lies the problem: there's no way to unregister a number from iMessage.

Some of your friends may enable the SMS-fallback option, which will forward some of their messages as green bubbles. But group messages will never be forwarded. Your iPhone-using friends will just think you're ignoring them.

Re:WTF

[Parafilmus]

There are multiple, simple ways to sign your number out of iMessage, leaving it a regular text receiving number.

No. There is no effective way to "sign your number out," because individual phones cache iMessage numbers for months. If you sign out today, your friends will continue to send "blue bubbles" to your number for months, because your number is in their iMessage cache. It doesn't matter that you've signed out.

Signing out prevents new contacts from iMessaging you, but it has no effect on your existing contacts. They will keep sending "blue bubbles" to your number for months to come. The only effective way to sign out is to get a new phone number.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone who works at a telecommunications company, I cannot fully express just how many problems there are with people who go from a iPhone to another device... and it does not even have anything to to with SIM card. For example, the Samsung S III uses a Micro SIM but the iphone 5 uses a Nano SIM, therefore a new SIM is provided, but they keep the same number, THAT is where the issue lies. All our customers end up calling US to complain about their inability to receive messages from friends and family who still use iPhones. We've even had people who spoke to Apple first and were told it was not their issue and to call their carrier (complete BS---thanks Apple) and it's such a hassle to explain why it is happening and that it IS an apple issue as any other device would NOT have this problem, let alone how to go about resolving it, we've had to go as far as having their friends delete the contact for them AND toggle their iMessage off then send a text then toggle imessage on before the apple server would realize "oh that number doesn't belong to a iPhone anymore".. SO that means for every person who goes from a iphone to another device... EVERY single one of their friends who also has a iphone and has EVER messaged them via iMessage, needs to troubleshoot their OWN phone just because the person decided to not go with an iPhone anymore... I don't know about your opinion on that... sure as hell sounds to me like Apple is trying to "lock-in" customers and say "well that is what you get for stopping to continue to use our devices".... however usually once we get the customer to understand that... the first thing they do is let all their friends and family know that they should switch off from iPhones... so it seems to be opposite of what Apple wants... either way its a ridiculous "feature" and seriously needs to worked on as in its current state is is absolutely flawed and that in undeniable.

Re:WTF

[BasilBrush]

In the common case that the user still has an iPhone, but it's switched off, or otherwise off the network, you have caused an unnecessary SMS to be sent. Which may cost money.

And the receiver may well end up with duplicated messages.

Re:WTF

[BasilBrush]

If you stop using WhatsApp or those other services you'll also lose messages.

Re:WTF

[BasilBrush]

there's no way to unregister a number from iMessage.

Other than the ways set out in TFS and TFA.

Re:WTF

[BasilBrush]

That's fine if you know about it, but most people don't since there is no warning on the app or provided in the box with the phone. Most people's experience will be that their SMS messages stop working and are with lost in a black hole or delivered to some random device.

My heart bleeds that in your imagination, you as an Apple hater will be inconvenienced when you exchange your nonexistant iPhone for an Android phone. Real users aren't having a problem.

Re:WTF

[angel'o'sphere]

Those 'unnecessary' SMS are sent if you have an iPhone, they are not sent if you switch away from it (as the article and some posters here claim).

My GF lives in france, when I'm in france I'm not in the internet. All her iMessages reach me as SMS and my SMS I sent in france reach her 'normaly'.

Vice versa if she is in germany.

If she is on the internet and so am I, we both receive each others messages as iMessage (also in other countries if we have WLAN).

Re:WTF

[BasilBrush]

As other posters have pointed out, there's an option in iOS to default to SMS if iMessage fails. Which seems about right. You have it switched on. But anyone who doesn't want to incur SMS charges can have it switched off.

Re:WTF

[Parafilmus]

there's no way to unregister a number from iMessage.

Other than the ways set out in TFS and TFA.

Those methods don't quite accomplish it. You can unregister your number from Apple's central directory, not from the persistent iMessage cache of individual phones.

After unregistering, new contacts won't send iMessages to your number, but existing contacts will continue to send iMessages for weeks or months, as your number lingers in their phone's iMessage cache.

I unregistered a number back in November. Most of my iPhone contacts see that number as green by now, but a few persistent devices -still- show it as a blue iMessage number.

Re: WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you know about this you can find out about it with a search, handy.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "by default" - it's just because they already have a iMessage window open with you. This whole "article" sounds kinda "contrived".

So this is just your friends sending iMessages to a defunct account, and really has nothing to do with your ability to receive texts on your new phone. If your friends send you an SMS message to your phone number, you will receive it whether it's an iPhone or a Blackberry, a Windows phone, or an Android phone.

Re:WTF

[Anonymous Coward]

Real users aren't having a problem.

Of course they aren't. The only people who are having this problem are those who have switched from an iPhone to something else which means they are no longer using an iPhone and ipso facto they are not "real users".

Re:WTF

[exomondo]

As other posters have pointed out, there's an option in iOS to default to SMS if iMessage fails. Which seems about right. You have it switched on. But anyone who doesn't want to incur SMS charges can have it switched off.

How do you know that the message you are about to send will be an iMessage and not an SMS?

Re:WTF

[Plumpaquatsch]

Real users aren't having a problem.

Of course they aren't. The only people who are having this problem are those who have switched from an iPhone to something else which means they are no longer using an iPhone and ipso facto they are not "real users".

Hey, since there are actually more people going the other way - who cares.

Re: WTF

[multimediavt]

No, actually, those links are the product information pages any mouth breather would click on to find out what they might be buying. Do you just buy something at a store having no prior knowledge of the product? If so, go back and get in line with the lemmings.

Learned the hard way

[nurb432]

I found this out over a year ago when i finally switched. It was dammed annoying too. Took a couple of days to even figure out it was happening "didn't you get my message?"

Thankfully my iDevice was still functional so i could turn it back on, but it would have been even harder if not.

Thanks for nothing, Apple.

Re:Learned the hard way

[kmg90]

You shouldn't be so surprised Well it's not like their is a precedent of Apple being open and using/allowing of unified standards (USB/HDMI/uPNP)

Re:Learned the hard way

[fustakrakich]

Apple is a pioneer and they set the bar on vendor lock-in. In that context they have done an admirable job and hold an enviable position. Nobody does it better.

Re:Learned the hard way

[noh8rz10]

on the iphone, you just sign out of imessage. go to settings, messages, send and recieve. tap on your apple id and tap sign out. Then apple will know to send any texts to your number as SMS not imessage. although it shouldn't be a big dealio because when your friends send texts the imessage should fall back to a SMS when the imessage fails.

I guess it's a step when switching, but it's hardly a lock-in.

Re:Learned the hard way

[nurb432]

Its not a big deal now, but it was when it first started happening to people and no one knew what the hell was going on.

In my case, iOS friends messages never did fall back, and they all went into the bit bucket.

Re:Learned the hard way

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets correct a few misunderstandings there newbie

Apple was one of the movers and shakers for USB adoption. They were the first top tier manufacturer ( HP/Dell/Sony/etc ) to include USB only systems ( by that I mean no backward compatibility ) and were criticized for it at the time.

Apple didn't support HDMI on their computers ( but do on mac mini and apple TV even today) , but there was little purpose before then to even consider it. It is electronically identical to DVI, which in the late 90's early 2000's they were already supporting and HDMI didn't have the feature of backward compatibility of VGA. No monitors supported it back then anyway and hdmi TV's were prohibitively expensive. Also, this is not a unified or open standard. In recent years Apple has backed Display port, which is open and completely *royalty free* and backed by VESA.

Apple's Bonjour is mDNS which apple began work on in 1998 ( proposed in 1997 by someone who went on to be an Apple employee ). Apple participated in submitting drafts for RFC's for this in the early 2000's and to separate RFCs were ratified in 2013. ( rfc6762 and rfc6763 ) OPEN standards.

There is extraordinary precedent of Apple being open the quicktime server code has a BSD license. The Webkit engine which is basically in EVERYTHING is BSD licensed. Apple contributes code directly to FreeBSD on many occasions. Apple was instrumental in the adoption and maturity of LLVM.

  So lets not be so flippant, shall we?

Re:Learned the hard way

[the_B0fh]

Unfortunately I had commented already, but you deserve modpoints.

Re:Learned the hard way

[PNutts]

This is what I keep coming back to. You have to initially turn on (log into) iMessage to start using it. And there are complaints because you have to log out for the service to stop working? And this is a lock-in strategy? Wow.

Re:Learned the hard way

[Hal_Porter]

There is extraordinary precedent of Apple being open the quicktime server code has a BSD license. The Webkit engine which is basically in EVERYTHING is BSD licensed. Apple contributes code directly to FreeBSD on many occasions. Apple was instrumental in the adoption and maturity of LLVM.

I'm really tempted to link to some insane Stallman rant about how LLVM/BSD and Apple are EVIL because of the BSD licence. But this is slashdot not reddit and I don't want to turn it into reddit.

Re:Learned the hard way

[Parafilmus]

on the iphone, you just sign out of imessage. go to settings, messages, send and recieve. tap on your apple id and tap sign out. Then apple will know to send any texts to your number as SMS not imessage.

Signing out doesn't solve the problem, because individual phones cache iMessage numbers for months.

Signing out will prevent new contacts from iMessaging you. But it won't remove your number from the persistent cache in your existing contacts' phones. They will continue to iMessage you, no matter that you've signed out.

Re:Learned the hard way

[exomondo]

While Stallman does hold his belief that proprietary software and proprietary software vendors are "evil" I don't recall ever seeing anything like that in reference to LLVM or BSD.

Re:Learned the hard way

[Hal_Porter]

He called LLVM a 'terrible setback' and BSD a 'pushover licence'

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.p...

Re:Learned the hard way

[exomondo]

Yes I know that, that's hardly the same thing.

Turn off iMessages ?

[ClaraBow]

You can just turn of iMessages and the conversation reverts to plain text messages. It has always worked for me.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[slampman]

Exactly.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[mark-t]

but if I turn off iMessages, doesn't that mean that any other iphone user will no longer be able to keep sending texts to me unless they reset their imessage settings as well?

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[weave]

No. Their imessage chat bubble turns green to let them know their message will go out as a text and not an iMessage -- but it will work.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Explain that to the 306 people you know that have iPhones and message you all the time and have been for years. Once you switch away from Apple, those 306 people won't know you aren't getting their message. This is not a hypothetical problem, it actually happens and many people have NO idea that their messages are not going and the intended recipient has no idea they are sending them. So much for it just works.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, no?
 
Seriously, how does this kind of FUD get modded up?

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[ClaraBow]

It does work for me. I can switch between iMessage and text messages without a problem. My daughter has an iPhone without a data plan, and I can send her iMessages when she is connected to Wifi and when she is not, I simply turn off iMessage on my phone and send her plain texts and it works.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[bored_engineer]

My daughter has an iPhone without a data plan. . .

How did you (or she) manage that? Every carrier I've seen requires data with any smartphone connected to the network, and I thought I read that they can detect the phone. I've thought about doing exactly this, but haven't been bold enough to give it a go.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[gstoddart]

How did you (or she) manage that?

Off the top of my head: someone upgraded their iPhone and got a new one and had a spare, they bought a used phone, or went into the Apple store and bought the phone at retail price.

If you've got a phone which just uses a SIM card, you can swap phones pretty easily.

Hell, my SIM card has been through about 6-7 phones in the last 14 years (which is how long I've had the number).

You can't buy from a carrier w/o the data plan because the subsidy factors in the cost of your data plan. But it's easy enough to change phones unless they're the really annoying carrier locked crap which doesn't just use SIM cards. I've got a (cheap) smart phone with no data plan.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[mark-t]

So if she's not able to accept iMessages, then *YOU* have to turn iMessage off on your phone? Do you not see how that might be problematic if a person who had formerly accepted iMessages switched to a different platform? Suddenly this peron can no longer accept messages from people with an iPhone unless they switch off iMessage on their phone first...

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[bored_engineer]

I don't have a contract, and will never have another one again. When I was on a contract, I hated being locked in when I discovered that AT&T sucks in interior Alaska and couldn't switch without incurring a penalty. (While in Cantwell, I had a signal, but couldn't make a call: They couldn't tell me why. There were at least two more reasons I wanted to switch away.)

I have a vague memory, though, of reading that carriers can get the model of your phone, and will happily add data if they find you're using a smart phone without a data plan. Perhaps I should be more bold.

Right now, I'm paying $30/mo for a local plan, with an older phone. It includes unlimited calling ad unlimited texting with 1 GB of data and fantastic coverage. I don't have a strong incentive anymore for trying to dump the data fees, though I did give it serious thought and eliminated the possibility because of the limitations I perceived.

Do you mind sharing which carrier you use?

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[bored_engineer]

unlimited calling ad unlimited texting

That should be "and," rather than "ad." GCI doesn't serve up ads as you use their service.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[gstoddart]

I have a vague memory, though, of reading that carriers can get the model of your phone, and will happily add data if they find you're using a smart phone without a data plan. Perhaps I should be more bold.

In which case you call them up, inform them you didn't want or ask for a data plan, and that they can't legally add something to your bill without your consent and to credit your bill because you didn't sign up for it.

They certainly can't say you're not allowed to have a data-capable phone which doesn't have a data plan.

Companies may do that in the hopes that you think it's convenient and keep it, but they can't force you to take a data plan, and they know it.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[bored_engineer]

They certainly can't say you're not allowed to have a data-capable phone which doesn't have a data plan.

Is that right? I thought that their networks are sufficiently under their control to allow them to exclude whomever (and whatever) they want. Am I wrong?

Perhaps a carrier like T-Mobile ignores out-of-defined-use of smartphones, but do other carriers?

Re: Turn off iMessages ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly what AT&T said, no fewer than 4 separate times to me when my wife and I did the exact same thing: I upgraded my iPhone and gave her the old one, and we tried to disable all data.

AT&T could tell that the hardware had changed. They automatically added the data plan. I called to complain and the service agent told me they would remove it, but their policy was that iPhones must have data, even old, unsupported iPhone 3Gs. They said that the data plan would automatically be re-added when their software did another sweep looking for cheapskates, and sure enough, it did, roughly quarterly. Until finally I couldn't get any service agents to remove the charges and plan anymore.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[gstoddart]

Wow, perhaps I have misunderstood the douchebaggery of phone companies.

I fail to see how it is legal to decree that since your phone is capable of having data, that they can force you to pay for it.

That's completely irrational, and sounds pretty sketchy from a legal perspective -- you've signed me up for something because you figure I should be paying for it? And that's legal??

Re: Turn off iMessages ?

[WebCowboy]

We purged our household of iphones last year and went through this little "eff you" crapple experince. Nobody tells you that apple hijacks your sms permanently by default and it must be manually taken back if you switch platforms.

After 3 days of missing texts the wife turned on her ipad to watch some netflix and saw all these texts. After going on a treasure hunt we figured out how to free iphone-source texts from the imessage prison via the apple website as the old iphone was gone.

Apple makes this harder to find than it should be but it isn't too hard to do. You don't have to tell all your friends who still have iphones to mess with their settings but you may have to wait a day or two for the de-registration to propigate to all your friends iphones--the imessage system seems to work like DNS.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[ClaraBow]

My daughter had an older phone with an unlimited texting plan and 5 cents a minute talk plan for 15$ a month from T-mobile. I just gave her my old iPhone and put the SIM card in the iPhone and it worked. Most teen hardly talk on the phone these days. Not sure if T-Mobile still offers this plan.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[Parafilmus]

You can just turn of iMessages and the conversation reverts to plain text messages. It has always worked for me.

Try a group conversation between 2 or more iMessage users, and one former-iMessage user.

Re:Turn off iMessages ?

[exomondo]

My daughter has an iPhone without a data plan, and I can send her iMessages when she is connected to Wifi and when she is not, I simply turn off iMessage on my phone and send her plain texts and it works.

Isn't having to work out whether or not she is on wifi and then changing settings on your phone to accommodate that really annoying?

You're an idiot

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you're too fucking stupid to turn iMessages off? Must be evil apple trying to lock you in.

Fucking tool.

Re:You're an idiot

[hondo77]

There's a support page for that.

There's not an actual story here.

[slampman]

"Very convenient until you want to leave your iPhone and switch back to plain old text messages because suddenly you'll be unable to receive text messages from your iPhone-toting friends."

That's not how it works. And the "obscure workaround" linked is simply instructions for how to send an iMessage as a text, like in the cases where iMessage fails (poor reception).

Pure FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, if you start a messages session on your iphone, with another messages account and then for some unknown reason decide that you're not going to use your iPhone to continue the conversation but switch to a completely different phone that you're also paying for service on for some reason, you can't continue that conversation over messages. Of course, you can just send a text message from your other phone to your friend and keep going but I guess that's too difficult.

Re:Pure FUD

[Holi]

But on any other phone I can still continue to receive texts from everyone. With apple if the the other person doesn't delete the message thread they can't reach you. This has nothing to do with what I can do to fix the issue. Apple's version of free always comes with a hefty price.

Why is imessage opt put instead of opt in if not to create a vendor lock in situation.

Re:Pure FUD

[sexconker]

So basically, if you start a messages session on your iphone, with another messages account and then for some unknown reason decide that you're not going to use your iPhone to continue the conversation but switch to a completely different phone that you're also paying for service on for some reason, you can't continue that conversation over messages. Of course, you can just send a text message from your other phone to your friend and keep going but I guess that's too difficult.

If you kept your number, your friend still on Messages will see your text in their Messages conversation and, when replying, will think it got sent to you but in reality it gets sent to your Message account which should be (but isn't) disabled.

As far as I can tell form the shitty summary, anyway.

Re:Pure FUD

[Anonymous Coward]

So being a member of Google+ just for signing up for Gmail is vendor lockin too? Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:Pure FUD

[Imazalil]

No. iMessages and regular SMS coexist in the same thread. You can jump between the two at will. If you are imessaging with someone and they switch phones or just disable imessage, you'll just send out a SMS and they get a SMS.

Not Always

[rainwater]

I switched to Android and disabled iMessage before switching. Even though I did that, iMessage wasn't disabled and I wasn't able to receive messages for days from iPhone users. It is not always a user error.

Android does it too

[Anonymous Coward]

Android does the exact same thing with Hangouts or whatever the hell it's called now.

Re:Android does it too

[danbob999]

Hangouts works on any device connected to the internet, phone, PC, whatever. It uses the open XMPP protocol. It's a shame Google left the federation however.

Re:Android does it too

[Anonymous Coward]

1. The XMPPdiots *still* don't get the difference between an e164/misdn and a jid.
2. Hangouts does not use XMPP, never has, probably never will.
3. Using XMPP (on GooTalk) without federation is as usefull as using $proprietary_protocoll_4711.

Re:Android does it too

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, but that's still not the intended behavior for someone who was using it as a SMS replacement.

Re:Android does it too

[danbob999]

The fact is you can use any XMPP client to send messages to those using Google Hangouts / Google Talk. If you want to communicate with iMessage users you need an iProduct and a software written by Apple. So even without the federation, it is much more useful than a proprietary protocol.

Re:Android does it too

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? That's odd, because I use android, and when I send a text message, it sends a text message. When I go into google hangouts, and send a text there, it uses my data plan. But shit, I had no idea it was subverting my intentions behind my back. Now if only it would figure out some of my friends who are also on android that keep sending me texts, to actually send them as google hangout messages so I wouldn't be charged since I don't have a text plan, that would be great.

But then again, me's be thinking you's be full of shit.

Seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. How many people know in advance of buying a new phone that they're going to have problems with text messages if they switch away from their iPhone? What, are you suggesting that they buy an Android phone and then immediately return it because their text messages don't work on the new phone, and then go back and buy another iPhone? Because that's the only way I can possibly see this promoting lock-in.

Reset Your Apple ID Password

[Anonymous Coward]

If you wipe your phone before turning off iMessage, reset your Apple ID password and your problem is solved. I had this happen to me.

Re:Reset Your Apple ID Password

[mark-t]

And that's not vendor-lock in how?

Seriously... if an iphone user switches to a non-iphone, it would make much more sense if other iphones trying to send messages to a former iphone user would fall back to ordinary text message protocols. But they don't do that... and a person who swithes from an iphone to another phone will now have to jump through hoops like what you describe.

Apple and Microsoft are so much alike

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

They both believe in vendor lock. When I got my iMac it converted my photos from my camera to some iPhoto library from which it was quite difficult to take it out in simple jog files. For the two years I used iMac my videos and photos were all so locked up I actually lost interest and reduced my shutter bug instincts a lot.

Re:Apple and Microsoft are so much alike

[PapayaSF]

When I got my iMac it converted my photos from my camera to some iPhoto library from which it was quite difficult to take it out in simple jpg files.

File -> Export works for me. If you want to access a bunch at a time, they're in [your user directory]/Pictures/iPhoto Library.

And for those who haven't followed link about the "obscure workaround":

To do this, simply tap and hold on the undelivered message and a “Send as Text Message” option should appear in the context menu. This works even when “Send as SMS” is disabled in your settings, allowing you to decide when you’d rather send a text message for expediency or simply leave it to wait until the recipient’s device is back online.

I'm not saying that Apple never does lock-in, but both those seem like pretty weak examples.

Re:Apple and Microsoft are so much alike

[Anonymous Coward]

140Mandick is the biggest Linux shill there is. He probably never owned a Mac in the first place. Just go see some of the other lying shit he posts and you'll know it's safe to ignore his bullshit lies.

Re:Apple and Microsoft are so much alike

[radarskiy]

"quite difficult to take it out in simple jog files." /Masters///

// contains the original file organized by timestamp. That's too hard for you?

Re:Apple and Microsoft are so much alike

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a fucking retard, then. Drag the photos from iphoto onto the desktop. Takes less then a second. Tada! Jpeg images. Hard, wasn't it.

Turn in your geek creds, man. The "File - Export" option was another clear choice. 2 years to figure that out? And you blame Apple?

Re:Apple and Microsoft are so much alike

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

I rummaged around the file system. I did not find /Masters folder in my $home. There is no /Master folder in the root. I just checked. I know my way around the file system, enough to discover a clever way to keep your AVCHD folders any way you liked them and mounting them as fresh camera repository to their video editor using symbolic links. (Search for symbolic link, avchd in the same 140mandak262jamuna handle.) I know I can take anything out any way I want to. But it was not easy, not was not intuitive. I was probably expecting more and it needed a lot of work.

My biggest beef was it was converting all my videos to quicktime. And it id not support mpg files directly. It wanted me to buy some software for jpg support. After shelling out 1300$ I hated being nickel and dimed for stupid mpg2 support. At that point I lost interest and just gave the machine to my kid. It still works it is on the next desk. But I touch it rarely. When I got it fresh, I did lots of stuff with ffmpg, scripting it to reencode some videos etc. I had an external hard disk that failed and after that there were so many dead links it was a pain to use iPhoto. I was not willing to spend the time to learn enough to clean it up.

Unless you are careful and know your way around unix basics, Apple will trap you into their walled garden. They have their own video format, audio format, image format, even ascii files have a different line ending.

Re:Apple and Microsoft are so much alike

[radarskiy]

It is inside the iPhoto Library, which is really just a directory. Here is a listing showing the iPhoto Library as a directory and its contents:

synnax:~ radar$ ls -1F ~/Pictures/iPhoto\ Library/
AlbumData.xml
Apple TV Photo Cache/
Attachments/
Auto Import/
Backup/
Contents/
Data@
Data.noindex@
Database/
Info.plist
Library.data
Library.iPhoto
Library6.iPhoto
Masters/
Modified@
Originals@
Previews/
ProjectDBVersion.plist
Projects.db
SlideshowAssets/
ThemeCache
Thumbnails/
iLifeShared/
iPhoto.ipspot
iPhotoAux.db
iPhotoLock.data
iPhotoMain.db
iPod Photo Cache/
repairOnLaunch

You can also get iPhoto to open a Finder window for you via File -> Reveal in Finder -> Original File

Re:Apple and Microsoft are so much alike

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Thanks. It is not called Masters but it is called Originals. I found it. Looks like it is origanized by the year and the folder names are based on some sort of user input at the time of import from camera. Thanks

Lock-in presupposes forethought on switching

[Anonymous Coward]

The "lock-in" angle presupposes people will think about the consequences of switching before switching. I don't think there are many people that do that. Those that do, will figure out how to fix it first. Those that don't will have to figure it out after they switch. Very little "lock-in" motivation there.

The lock-in angle for me is my DRM restricted iTunes Movies and TV-Shows.

Re:Lock-in presupposes forethought on switching

[mark-t]

The consequences of switching are that apparently you can't accept even perfectly ordinary text messages from iphone users who you once used iMessage with. Any iphone users that were former contacts who may not have turned iMessage off on their phones will have to now switch iMessage off to continue to send any text messages to you at all unless you had the foresight to turn iMessage off when it first came out.

So the consequences of switching are felt by people who may not have ever bothered to switch... and create a ratther major inconvenience even for people may actually be informed about the consequences for themselves if or when they do, because they would then have to contact all of the people they know with an iPhone and tell them all to turn iMessage off to continue to talk to them.

T-minus Eight Days and Counting

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, Clock Monkey! Citizens Everywhere Will Damage Their Biological Rhythm for Society's Good; Will You Be One of Them? Jump, Boy, Jump!

Isn't there, though?

[QuasiSteve]

That's not how it works.

Good. Please explain how it does work.

Per this old article:
http://asia.cnet.com/faq-whats...

It seems to work like this.
You go to the messaging app. This is the default messaging app. It does text messages (SMS), and it does iMessages. So far so good.

You enter a number or directly a contact. It checks if that contact is believed to use iMessage by way of the phone number. If it believes the contact uses iMessage, it will send it as an iMessage, otherwise it will send it as a text message.

Still so far so good.

Now that contact stops using iMessage - the example given being that they switch devices, keeping the same number. They didn't "turn iMessage off", because why on Earth does that seem like a logical thing to have to do? Especially if, say, they switched devices because their iPhone died; in which case, they can't turn it off (or can they? Oh yes, they can contact Apple Support; http://support.apple.com/kb/TS... ).

Now you send them a message. The iMessage app is clueless and sends an iMessage because hey, nobody ever told it that the contact is no longer using iMessage. iMessage will eventually come back and say that it failed, and you as the sender either send again or shrug it off, but it might not occur to you to send as a text message instead. If you even can. Yes, if it already failed, you can hold the text and force that to send as text message. But the very next one you send is going to be an iMessage again. Of course, you can disable iMessage on your end, but that disables sending iMessage to all of your contacts. Short of deleting pre-existing iMessages for a given contact, it doesn't seem there's a way to just flip the "this contact uses iMessage" bit.

But here's the rub.. they shouldn't have to explicitly set anything at all.
A. Receive iMessage from contact -> set iMessage bit on contact.
B. Receive text message from contact -> clear iMessage bit on contact if present.
C. Failed iMessage -> re-send. Failed again? -> re-send as text. Delivered? (if supported by the networks) -> clear iMessage bit. Otherwise, see A/B.
D. User enables / disables iMessage explicitly -> set state in central registry (Apple ID is involved, right?).
E. Every once in a while, send as an iMessage anyway if the central registry suggests that the user really should have iMessage because they never turned it off. Worst case: the send ends up with situation C said 'every once in a while', which would be transparent to them. Best case: after a few of those, even the central registry could get a clue and disable the iMessage bit on their end, allowing it to propagate.
Having the onus of 'iMessage bit' state at the sender's side be solely on the end of the recipient is stupid.

I wouldn't say that it is a case of lock-in, though. Just a suboptimal approach. (And yes, I realize there's potential issues with A-E above as well). The bit that makes it peculiar, to say the least, is that this problem has been complained about since at least the end of 2011. Just not by enough people for it to be "an actual story", I guess.

Correct me if any of the above is wrong - I'm certainly not an iPhone user so I've only got the most basic of google search results as my sources.

Re:Isn't there, though?

[hondo77]

They didn't "turn iMessage off", because why on Earth does that seem like a logical thing to have to do?

Because they originally turned iMessage on.

Re:Isn't there, though?

[Calydor]

And then they turned their phone off. Do you expect Firefox to still be refreshing your tabs while your computer is powered off and dismantled?

Re:Isn't there, though?

[Lysol]

Yah, you're pretty much right. Honestly, I dunno why this is such a big deal. Apple's intent here is to bypass the carriers - anyone remember the at&t mms debacle?

If you're using Apple devices, iMessage is great since it's encrypted end to end and 'just works'. If you're using something else, you can still get messages from iOS devices - I do this all the time. I have friends that have left iMessage and sms still works fine.

Not sure what the big conspiracy is here, except more Samsung fud..?

Everyone is moving off of sms, that's why you see more an more messaging apps. I'm not giving Apple a pass, or Microsoft, or anyone else. This is just the natural evolution of smartphones gobbling up carrier services. I don't think the device makers are the ones to blame here - the carriers are the ones that gauge everyone for ridiculous fees for sms. As a user, I would expect my device/os company to create solutions to work around the rip off that is sms.

Re:Isn't there, though?

[Anubis IV]

You pretty much got it right. What I'm unclear about, however, is why this is an issue at all. If an iMessage fails to deliver, the Messages app on iOS falls back to sending it as an SMS instead, which should still get through to someone on their new, non-iPhone device. The only reason I can imagine it not doing so is if it thinks it actually succeeded in sending the message, but that would only happen if the recipient had configured an iPod Touch, iPad, or Mac computer to also receive iMessages on their behalf, in which case the message actually is getting delivered, just not to the expected devices (though that would be clear to them, so they'd know to go and de-register their old iPhone if they didn't want to wait for Apple to do it automatically).

Maybe I'm missing something too?

Re:Isn't there, though?

[Karlt1]

And then they turned their phone off. Do you expect Firefox to still be refreshing your tabs while your computer is powered off and dismantled?

They may have turned their phone off, but that doesn't mean that they turned off their iPod Touch, iPad, or Mac that are all capable of receiving iMessages.

Re:Isn't there, though?

[QuasiSteve]

They didn't "turn iMessage off", because why on Earth does that seem like a logical thing to have to do?

Because they originally turned iMessage on.

Did they? I thought iMessage defaulted to on with the introduction of its feature as part of the standard messaging app in iOS 5? Or is the act of upgrading / buying it new equivalent to 'turning it on'?

That as an aside (albeit an important one), you didn't really answer the (rhetorical, I might add) question. Why would it seem like a logical thing to have todo. Of course it's logical to turn it off if you're aware of the mess you're going to be in if you don't. But is it logical to have to and not have any other suitable solution in case you did indeed forget, or simply can't (without Apple Customer care intervention).

Re:Isn't there, though?

[Calydor]

I'll admit I haven't ever used an Apple product and so don't know the details of how iMessage works, plus it's 3 am and I can't sleep. However, I don't recall other Apple devices being mentioned, rather a PHONE NUMBER being moved from one kind of phone to another - and suddenly what people may have THOUGHT were SMS messages suddenly not appearing. If they were receiving the messages on their iPad, iPod or Mac instead there wouldn't be as much of a problem with going days without getting any messages and not knowing something was wrong, right?

Re:Isn't there, though?

[Anonymous Coward]

People with low cost or free SMS messaging aren't moving off to anything very fast.

Re:Isn't there, though?

[QuasiSteve]

As I can't mod you up - have a "Thank You" comment. I have to admit that a lot of the google search results are very unclear on whether there's any fallback on delivery failure (recipient not using iMessage) and whether or not that is the same as a fallback on send failure (sender has no data connectivity, say).

If it falls back on delivery automatically, then I don't know why this is an issue either; again, that would be transparent. Except in the case you mention.. which I can certainly imagine being a bit confusing but hopefully easily detected (though how much would it suck if you're on a short vacation and left your iPad at home, quietly collecting the iMessages until its battery runs out, and you not getting those messages. It's interesting to know how edge cases are handled. )

Re:Isn't there, though?

[Above]

You are correct about the behavior, but I think I can explain why Apple made the choices at work here.

It turns out iMessages are cryptographically secured with public key cryptography using a per device key. There is a recent Techcrunch Article that details what they have released, but it appears to be a highly secure implementation. Each device has a private key that never leaves the device. An iMessage is actually encrypted to multiple public keys so each device can read it. No one outside the device holder, not even Apple, has the ability to decrypt messages.

I think the argument Apple would make, and I would agree with is to fall back to SMS would be insecure. It's possible to conceive of ways an attacker could prevent an iMessage from being delivered (a Denial of Service attack, for instance). That could force a fallback to SMS, which is often not well secured and/or permanently archived by the carrier or governments. Worse, with your algorithm simply sending someone a text message from a spoofed source would clear the bit, and might result in an insecure communication.

As a result, I would argue if you value strong encryption and privacy, Apple's choices make perfect sense. Turn on strong crypto when you can, and don't automatically fall back to something without strong crypto.

Re:Isn't there, though?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you THANK YOU for giving an actually accurate explanation of what happens. This totally jives with what happened in my experience (trying to text someone who switched from iphone to samsung phone).

Re:Isn't there, though?

[PlusFiveTroll]

>Because they originally turned iMessage on.

Completely erase your iphone and set it back up.

Setting up iMessage is one of the first 'default' screens that you come to in the processes. As in put your user and pass here with a little skip option on the bottom of the screen. They didn't explicitly find the setting and turn it on. It presents itself in a manner that leads the user to believe that it must be turned on.

Huh?

[kelemvor4]

It's 2014, do people somewhere still pay by the message?

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup! I even pay by the message on messages received. Welcome to Canada.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, those of us who have data plans and therefor prefer to be contacted via IM rather than text. The cheapest texting plan from my carrier (verizon) is $5 a month. I get about 4 texts a month, as most people use IM. As such, it's a waste of money to have a text plan, since that costs me $0.80 a month. But then again, I tend to believe no family plan doesn't come with texting, but not everybody has a family plan to be a member of.

Re:Huh?

[ohieaux]

Wife and I have a family plan with separate data and shared minutes. AT&T wants $30/month for the a texting plan. Even at $0.20/text, we don't come close to $30.

Re:Huh?

[fnj]

Stupid people and people in loser countries do, evidently. The rest of us are on no-contract Virgin Mobile.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Virgin Media sucks donkey balls (or at least their support does)

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's 2014, do people somewhere still pay by the message?

India

Welcome to 3 years ago!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever since iMessage was introduced in what was it.. iOS 4, people have known about this "feature". Welcome to slashdot headlines from 2011. Just silly rant from some guy who didn't understand what iMessage does because it was a new feature 3 years ago.

Re:Welcome to 3 years ago!

[mark-t]

The point, I think, is that this feature was turned on by default... which meant iphone users were communicating via iMessage unless the explicitly disabled it.

But if you were ever using iMessage with somebody in the past, then if you switch phones, then the person you were formerly using iMessage with will no longer even be able to send you any text messages without shutting off iMgessage on their end as well.

If you don't see how that's a problem for users today who may be considering moving away from Apple products, I'm not sure what is.

Re:Welcome to 3 years ago!

[j-beda]

The point, I think, is that this feature was turned on by default... which meant iphone users were communicating via iMessage unless the explicitly disabled it.

But if you were ever using iMessage with somebody in the past, then if you switch phones, then the person you were formerly using iMessage with will no longer even be able to send you any text messages without shutting off iMgessage on their end as well.

If you don't see how that's a problem for users today who may be considering moving away from Apple products, I'm not sure what is.

Yeah, it is a problem for switchers, and those who communicate with them, and probably should be addressed in a better way. However, it isn't really a "lock-in" type of situation, in that I doubt that enough people know about it before thinking about switching to have any impact on the number of switchers. If anything, it makes it more likely that a switcher will not come back since it creates a bad "last impression".

It is challenging to figure out a way to design the system to allow for good inter-operation between iMessage (which is nicely encrypted) and the standard SMS. I think that one does want to preferentially use the more secure system when available, and it is certainly a bad idea to fall-back to a non-secure SMS without transparently. Maybe iMessage needs to always check if the phone number is associated with iMessage each time a message is sent and put up a warning "1234567890 is no longer associated with iMessage account fred@icloud.com - should I send an SMS to 1234567890 or an iMessage to fred@icloud.com ?" or something like that. Of course then we would get complaints from people who don't understand the choice.

Re:Welcome to 3 years ago!

[Anonymous Coward]

The point, I think, is that this feature was turned on by default... which meant iphone users were communicating via iMessage unless the explicitly disabled it.

But if you were ever using iMessage with somebody in the past, then if you switch phones, then the person you were formerly using iMessage with will no longer even be able to send you any text messages without shutting off iMgessage on their end as well.

If you don't see how that's a problem for users today who may be considering moving away from Apple products, I'm not sure what is.

No you had to explicitly turn iMessage on to use it. Your iphone sent SMS by default.

So no lock-in. You opted into the service. When you leave the Apple ecosystem, just opt-out of the service. This is such a stupid non-issue I'm not even sure why it is on Slashdot.

Re:Welcome to 3 years ago!

[mark-t]

So no lock-in. You opted into the service.

This is false... I know this is anecdotal, but I currently own an iPhone, am strongly considering switching when my contract is up (two more months), and had never once even thought about this feature of the iPhone before reading this story, and it's not something I ever would have particularly cared about, so I never once explicitly turned on iMessage on my iPhone. In spite of this, I discovered that it was indeed enabled on my device. I bought the phone brand new, so this was not something done by any previous owner. Sure looks like it's by default to me.

The problem is, apparently, once you have an iMessage session going with somebody because you've been texting back and forth between two iPhones, if *YOU* ever decide to switch platforms, but keep your phone number, unless the other iPhone user switches iMessage off on their phone as well, or else they completely delete your text messaging session from their messaging history, you will no longer receive any texts from them (your texts will go out,but any responses they make will not get received because their phone will not fall back to SMS, because it believes that you still have an iPhone. If opting out of iMessage completely only requires that the feature be turned off from the phone with a single button tap, that's fine and dandy, and entirely acceptable in my case, but what about for people who no longer have their iphone, because it got lost or destroyed, and have replaced it with an alternative platform, but kept the same phone number?

Come on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh look I'm stuck in beta.

Cheers slashdot, you are officially removed from my bm list, off to ars with me.

Irrelevant

[m.dillon]

Many telco plans (possibly even most) no longer charge for texts. They already been squeezed out of the market by social media. These days data is all that matters and that's what telco's primarily charge for.

-Matt

Re:Irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone looking into this right now. You are correct. Verizon sprint and t mobile do not seem to have new plans without unlimited domestic text messaging.

Re:Irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

As a verizon subscriber myself, I'll be the first to say. They all offer unlimited texting. For an additional 10 bucks a month. I know this, because I don't have a text plan, because I have a data plan. And I yell at my friends to use hangouts rather than text me, and some can't get it through their skulls. But unless this is new within the last 10 months, they charge for unlimited texting.

Automatically switches to text?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anytime I've sent an iMessage to a friend who had bad signal or didn't have signal, or they sent me one when I had no signal, it has automatically switched to sending a text message. Does this not work for anyone else?

Oh, and iMessages is locking me in? I don't think so. That would be all the apps I've bought. Some of them not cheap.

BBM all over again

[alzaid.saud]

I recall a similar problem I had when transitioning from blackberry (both my iphone and blackberry are/were my work phone). Was hell trying to figure out how to deal with contacts etc still using bbm ......

Re:BBM all over again

[Anonymous Coward]

I recall a similar problem I had when transitioning from blackberry (both my iphone and blackberry are/were my work phone). Was hell trying to figure out how to deal with contacts etc still using bbm ......

Seriously? BBM is available on iphone and android.

On the blackberry, backup your BBM settings to your blackberry ID, then sign in with BBM on your iphone.

Your BBM contacts now appear automagically on your iphone.

On blackberry, it was always clear what type of message you are sending to someone - you don't have the option of sending a message and letting Steve Jobs figure out what protocol it should go by.

iPhoto? Not exactly....

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but this is actually a bit more about user ignorance than anything else. Not only can you export the photos from iPhoto, as PapayaSF suggests (or drag-and-drop them, btw), but you can also prevent the OS from automatically opening iPhoto to import your camera's photos at all. As this article suggests, you can go to iPhoto's preferences (General section), and in the "Connecting camera opens:" field, choose Image Capture or no application at all. If you choose Image Capture, you can have it import your photos to any folder of your choosing in the Finder. You never have to use iPhoto again.

Should that setting be in System Preferences instead of iPhoto? Yes. Is it therefore kind of poorly implemented? Yes. Is this an example of vendor lock-in? No.

Vendor lock-in is more along the lines of changing the file format to a proprietary one as the files are imported, which iPhoto doesn't do. If you start poking around inside the iPhoto Library package file, you'll find that the original .jpg files are all there. Encrypted music or video files would actually be a much more meaningful example of vendor lock-in.

lifehacker summary?

[dysmal]

I read the summary. The summary sounds like some cheap ass lifehacker story. In true /. tradition, i'm posting after reading the summary without RTFA.

Hope they will do a BETA first

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck BETA

Idiotic point

[mr100percent]

This is the same with Google Hangouts, WhatsApp, BBM, and all the rest. At least I can copy my iPhone's messages to a PC and archive them.

Apple's security documents show just how secure it actually is, with iMessage using public key cryptography. Are we going to also complain that PGP locks you in too now?

WTF? It's 2014

[mveloso]

Try pulling your data out of most services and importing it. Good luck with that.

Re:WTF? It's 2014

[Anonymous Coward]

Try pulling your data out of most services and importing it. Good luck with that.

India

Re:WTF? It's 2014

[Anonymous Coward]

Try pulling your data out of most services and importing it. Good luck with that.

India

Oops!

This is actually a pretty annoying issue.

[and303]

My girlfriend switched to a Nexus 4 from an iPhone shortly after the push of iOS 7, and came at me with the old: "This Android is a piece of shit! It won't receive texts!". I went through quite a lot of head-scratching trying to figure this out, as I initially assumed it was a problem with her new provider. After about 20 troubleshooting steps with little help from Apple or the internet, I figured out that only people with iOS 7 devices weren't able to send her texts. The solution: iOS7 leaves SMS off for iOS contacts by default. She had to "unregister" her iPhone and remove her mobile number from their database, letting Apple's iMessage servers know to always default to SMS with her phone number. This, of course, took nearly a week to kick in, in which her boss and co-workers had to frequently step outside to call her when they had a question. To a mobile phone dork it's pretty obnoxious. To someone who doesn't even realize that they're using a different text message protocol, it is actually a pretty big inconvenience.

Did not have this problem.

[aussersterne]

I switched from iPhone to Android after using iMessage extensively and did not have this problem. So clearly it depends on some particular status/configuration of all the involved parties.

Does this depend on:

1) Moving the SIM from your old phone to your new phone
2) Leaving your old phone on and connected to WiFi so that iMessages still sees you as being on network

Or something like that?

I know that when I switched, it was a really quick thing—new Android phone arrived via USPS, pulled my old SIM, put it into new phone, turned off old phone, and away we went. I was in mid conversation with several people and never experienced a hiccup over the course of the day. Even talked about it over SMS—complained about the default keyboard on the new phone and all kinds of stuff.

Wasn't aware of this issue and didn't experience it. What gives?

This is not really an issue when you switch

[BLToday]

This is not really an issue when you switch phones, the problem is the other users has set to always to use iMessage. Normally, if a "message" don't reach an iPhone user in a set amount of time, the system defaults to sending it as a text. That's the default behavior of iOS out of the box. Some users have turn it off in Messages settings therefore the iMessage never delivers the message and continues to wait it out.

Why would someone turn off "Send as SMS"?
Few reasons:
1) they're on Verizon or ATT and it's $10 minimum text plan,
2) the limit before it sends as SMS is really short (something around 5 seconds), and you don't want to annoy everyone with multiple iMessage and SMS for the same message
3) the user like knowing if the message actually arrived

Re:This is not really an issue when you switch

[Anonymous Coward]

I am not sure if this is a provider thing but I can attest that the default behaviour here seems to be to Send as SMS disabled by default.

Re:This is not really an issue when you switch

[BLToday]

I've had iPhones with ATT and Verizon, it has always defaulted to "Send as SMS" on for me. That's usually the first thing I turn off since it annoys people because some messages gets sent twice.

20 cents an SMS

[Anonymous Coward]

On my current AT&T contract, texts cost $0.20 (because I don't send a lot of SMS texts) so the idea of resending as SMS immediately after 1 error could be pricey for those times my sister or someone who does send iMessages decides to send a burst of texts to me.

MMS / Google Voice

[robbadler]

Apple group Messages go out as MMS to non-Apple phone. And if you have Google Voice, you don't receive it. Or even a warning that you might be missing Messages

hey uhhh unlimited text messaging?

[Anonymous Coward]

We're in the age or unlimited text unlimited calling, at least in the US anyway. So in light of that I'm not sure how it matters what iMessaging does. It's not saving anything unless you're one of the people that still have a minute and text message limited plan.

Locked in forever!

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll never get texts again! Unless you do the 3 (I counted) button presses needed to turn off iMessage. Or erase your phone before giving it away. Or if you don't do any of that, make a 7 minute phone call(again, I counted) and have Apple turn it off for you.
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts5185

The problem is you not following through.

[Anonymous Coward]

You imply that Apple is holding your messages hostage or something. There's no way for them to know you switched to another platform unless you tell them by shutting iMessage off on your iPhone before your switch or calling them to tell them if you forget and can't get to that phone anymore. It's like being mad at the Postal Service for not forwarding your mail when you didn't fill out the mail forwarding form. They're not omniscient.

'settings' is too hard?

[Imazalil]

Wait, so we have a bunch of Android fans complaining about the complexity of going to the settings screen and looking for a few toggle options. How do you actually use your Android phone? Samsungs' easy mode?

PS - this happened to me too and after my new phone didn't get the text message while my old iPhone did (without a sim card, over wifi) the first thing I thought was to turn off imessage. It's not hard people. Especially for the slashdot crowd, I really really hope.

But lets keep bashing Apple, and getting pageviews!