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