iPhone 12 Pro: IOS 26.1 Text message contacts

At the outset, this may look strange, but since you are receiving a group message on your iPhone indicates the following

1. This is an iMessage Group and not an SMS group. An iMessage group shows all other recipients, which an SMS group will not show. When you send an iMessage to multiple recipients, everyone in that group can see each other’s replies. It’s transparent—no hidden recipients.
2. Have you shared your Apple ID with others?
3. Is one of the group members has you in the group as an Apple ID and not as a Phone number?
4. Business/Marketing SMS Platforms (e.g., bulk SMS services).

Types of SMS services known to me.

One-way SMS: A business may have something to say, so they may send a single text message blast to get the word out. For example; Promotional SMS, Notices, Verification Codes, Bank OTPs, Transaction Confirmation, offers, Coupon, Discounts, Flash SMS, Reminders etc

Two-way SMS: This is what most of us use.

SMS Chatbots: The chatbot will allow an organisation's clients to start or stop a service or interact with FAQs.

gr8white6 wrote:

I really do not understand the difference between iMessage group and SMS groups. Sorry, I am not technical at all.

I have not shared my Apple ID with anyone.

How can I tell? It could be that years ago, I had done something like told Apple to hide my phone number.

The contact that is in the message (not me) has a phone number I do not recognize. In other texts, that don 't seem right it says there are 10 recipients. Ten are listed and none of them is me, and I do know all the others.

Both of these texts involve the same group of people. For the most part.

If every person in the group is an iPhone user AND they are ALL signed into iMessage, than the message will be delivered by Apple as iMessage. If, however, just one person in the group is NOT an iPhone user, the group message will be delivered as SMS or RCS depending on the carrier who delivers the message to the group. In other words, NOT through Apple's servers. You would be able to tell if the message bubble is Blue or Green. If Blue, it is iMessage. If green it is SMS/RCS and delivered by your carrier.

gr8white6 wrote:

I have been getting texts that do not appear to have me on the distribution. For example, a recent text came to 10 people. There were 10 contacts listed, but I was not one of them, yet I am still getting the texts.

Is there a setting that could cause this?

iPhone 12 Pro, IOS 26.1

There is no setting on your phone, which would hide you. Do you know the members of the group or is this is a group of strangers to you?

gr8white6 wrote:

Still not sure what is going on.

I do not know if everyone in the group uses iPhone. I am logged into iMessage. My message bubbles are green. I think these are SMS messages. Still do not understand how this all works.

As I said above, if the message bubble is green, the message is SMS or RCS depending on the carrier. The message is not iMessage.