Apple's Revenge: iMessage Might Eat Your Texts If You Switch To Android

redletterdave (2493036) writes "When my best friend upgraded from an iPhone 4S to a Galaxy S4, I texted her hello. Unfortunately, she didn't get that text, nor any of the five I sent in the following three days. My iPhone didn't realize she was now an Android user and sent all my texts via iMessage. It wasn't until she called me about going to brunch that I realized she wasn't getting my text messages. What I thought was just a minor bug is actually a much larger problem. One that, apparently, Apple has no idea how to fix. Apple said the company is aware of the situation, but it's not sure how to solve it. One Apple support person said: 'This is a problem a lot of people are facing. The engineering team is working on it but is apparently clueless as to how to fix it. There are no reliable solutions right now — for some people the standard fixes work immediately; many others are in my boat.'"

Comments

Sender should go to android.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly the fix is for the sending party to also switch to android.

Auto switches

[MidSpeck]

My experience is that if an iPhone is unable to send an iMessage (shows as blue), it automatically falls back to text message after 5 minutes (shows as green). After a few of these in a row, it defaults to text message until the iMessage connection can be re-established with the other endpoint. (Of course, this option can be turned off if you prefer to use only iMessages, at which point it's not going to be allowed it to fall back.)

Re:Auto switches

[Frosty Piss]

Single person has annoying but minor problem texting random social contact, assumes huge conspiracy and general incompetenceâ¦

What I thought was just a minor bug is actually a much larger problem. One that, apparently, Apple has no idea how to fix. Apple said the company is aware of the situation, but it's not sure how to solve it. One Apple support person said: 'This is a problem a lot of people are facing. The engineering team is working on it but is apparently clueless as to how to fix it. There are no reliable solutions right now â" for some people the standard fixes work immediately; many others are in my boat

Interesting that the "story" - such that it is - contains no links to substantiate such a huge issue. People, what some low-level help desk monkey tells you about "the engineering team" can probably be ignored, and assumed to be something they fall back on when they have no real answer for your isolated edge issue.

Re:Auto switches

[radarskiy]

Apple acknowledges the problem... but what do they know about Apple products?

Re:iOS: Deactivating iMessage

[djdanlib]

It would be awesome if cell phone salespeople would be aware of that and help their customers who are switching platforms.

Re:Fix according to Apple is

[SJHillman]

What if you're tossing it because it completely crapped out on you and, thus, you can't change anything?

Re:"No reliable solution"

[Charliemopps]

Text Messages USED to cost money. Now, nobody actually uses TXT, as we no longer have dumb phones. We use Hangouts, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, GoogleVoice, email ....

Txt was good when all you had was a feature phone.

Congrats on living in a major metropolitan area. The other 99% of the world still has to pay for texts.

I'll never get over peoples myopic view of the world.

Re:Fix according to Apple is

[AmiMoJo]

I wonder why Apple tech support don't just direct people to that site?

Reason number #12343

[Murdoch5]

I've used an iPhone and I couldn't give it up fast enough, it's a horrid platform that appears put together by children, this issue just backs that up.

Re:"No reliable solution"

[msauve]

If you're impressed by that, you should try IMAP email!

Vendor lock-in

[OneAhead]

Yup, Apple is still the undisputed king of vendor lock-in. More so than Microsoft and Google, I would say (though they're also doing their best).