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I bought an Android phone tonight, replacing my iPhone. I also ported my number to the new phone. However, now, anytime someone with an iPhone tries to SMS me, their phone automatically sends it as an iMessage, which I can't receive, since I no longer use my iPhone. How do I deactivate my phone number with iMessage so that I can start receiving text messages from my iOS-using friends again?
iPhone 4S, iOS 5.0.1
AHHHH After lots of tinkering I've solved the issue! 🙂😀
I really hope this helps everyone!
Okay. Heres what to do:
Within seconds of doing this I was able to receive SMS messages from iMessage users!
Hopefully this helps everyone, and Merry Christmas!
PuririDowns - those labels are purely decorative and have nothing to do with the function of the phone. It's like labelling a number "work" versus "home" - it's only for your benefit, the phone treats them exactly the same.
drStrangeP0rk - I'm a little confused as to the point of your message. You seem to not understand the problem. There are two components to it.
1) It is reasonable behavior to expect that when you switch phones, everything is switched, including delivery of your text messages. This is because every other phone on the market, when you switch your phone number to a new phone, your incoming text messages go to the new phone as well. It is a logical assumption to make based on years of past experience. If Apple has changed that, it should be well-documented. You wouldn't switch the brakes and the gas pedal of your new car without making sure that everyone who drives it knows that's the case.
2) Surely you would agree that how to fix this problem should be documented? And that if you call Apple Support, they should be know how to fix this issue too? Neither of those is the case. Instead, you have to go to your Apple Device Support page (a page that I never even knew existed until this thread, even after many, many years of owning Apple products) and de-register your device. Note that nowhere on the Apple Device Support page is the word "iMessage" even mentioned once, so there is no logical reason to assume it has anything to do with the iMessage service.
So whether the "bug" is in the procedure itself, or the "bug" is in the fact that no one at Apple support had any clue what the procedure was, there was clearly something very wrong here.
That support document is entitled "Troubleshooting Messages." There is no reason to think you would need to read it unless you were having trouble with Messages. I didn't have trouble with Messages until AFTER I switched phones, so it wouldn't have occurred to me to look at a troubleshooting page before I had any trouble. So the following text in that support document is not useful, because one is only likely to read it too late:
"If you plan on transferring your SIM card or phone number from an iPhone to a device that does not support iMessage, turn off iMessage in Settings > Messages first. If you do not, other iOS devices may continue to try to send a message using iMessage first, instead only using SMS or MMS."
It doesn't say what you should do if you failed to complete this step prior to transferring phone numbers. Luckily this forum found a solution.
Even now, after this has become a relatively big deal, Apple still hasn't updated this page with instructions on how to fix the problem. So perhaps a "bug" is not the correct description of the problem. Perhaps it should be called "incomplete documentation" or "lack of official support for the problem."
At any rate, thanks for the conversation. The problem is all fixed for me now, and hopefully Apple will update their support documents soon!
Has anyone tried relabelling the phone number? I have, and the message delivery system used changed according to the label of the number sent to.
Literroy wrote:
PuririDowns - those labels are purely decorative and have nothing to do with the function of the phone. It's like labelling a number "work" versus "home" - it's only for your benefit, the phone treats them exactly the same.
When the phone number I send to is on the "Mobile" field, then new messages are sent using the SMS delivery system. When that same phone number is re-labelled as "iPhone", the iMasseage delivery system is used. You can tell which delivery system the phone is intending to use by the label in the message box - it reads either "message" or "iMessage". That decision intelligence can only come from the phone itself.
I also experimented with switching off "mobile data" and "WiFi". New messages were sent using SMS.
There is a point of confusion though. Now that I have both iMessage and SMS messages to the same recipient, I have 2 different and separate message streams and can continue to reply to messages in each stream using the different delivery systems.
It seems to me that, in hindsight and coming from experimentation, Apple's logic in designing iMessage is correct but confusing until we know how it works. Apple are very poor at explaining the hows and whys of their services. I would prefer that Apple do not 'dumb down' their services and instead disclose how and why things work for those of us that want to know.
In Apple's product documents, they do make the point very clearly, about what to do when transferring a sim card or phone number to another non-iphone:
"If you plan on transferring your SIM card or phone number from an iPhone to a device that does not support iMessage, turn off iMessage in Settings > Messages first. If you do not, other iOS devices may continue to try to send a message using iMessage first, instead only using SMS or MMS."
It is wrong that Apple puts the demand for action on the changing user - who would ever think to read some Apple documents when changing phones? The action should come from the senders side - if iMessage fails so many times in a row, then quit sending iMessages until reconfirmed.
It's not the person who changes phones issue, it's the everyone else trying to send iMessages to them.
I like my iPhone and intend to stay with it, but some people feel differently and will change to non-apple devices. Apple devices should be smart enough to figure that out.
I'm having this very same problem.
I ported my number over to my new phone. My new phone is an Android device.
I wanted to use my old iPhone 4 as an iPod.
My wife and many family members have iPhones. I can't get any text messages from them to the new phone. They all go to my deactivated iPhone.
Very bad design flaw.
So, how do we fix it?
I was able to.deactivate imessage
My iphone was never registered. But, after I registered then removed it the problem was fixed.
If someone never registered their phone and no longer had the serial number they would still be out of luck.
Apple definitely needs to come up with a better solution.
andy2na wrote:
Apple, why have you not officially put this on your support page?
andy2na, why have you not read the Terms of Use you agreed to when you joined this forum? If you did, you would know that you are not addressing Apple here - only other iPhone users. Apple does not read or participate here.
I can't receive any IM from my wife's iPhone on my new Android phone. All her IMs are still going to my old iPhone.
I went to : https://supportprofile.apple.com/MySupportProfile.do
and my old iPhone (the one that is still receiving my SMS messages) is NOT listed there anymore. However, it is still receiving all IMs coming in from iPhones.
Any ideas?
Follow my instructions up top.
If you have your old phones serial number register it with your account. I then deleted my mobile number. After that I unregistered/deleted the phone from my profile, thus removing it from the look up table.
Good luck.
Nope no number there. Still have the problem.
I don't know if new iphone numbers have the same issue (i.e. someone new who had never texted me when I had imessage). I only really text with one person who has an iphone.
This did not fix my problem. I recently switched to a Samsung Galaxy S2 Skyrocket. I had an iPhone for almost 4 years. I did not turn off iMessages before switching phones. It is now turned off on my old iPhone 4. When iPhone users send me a text it works as far as I know. When I am involved in a group message though, I will not receive anything from the other iPhone users that have iMessages on. I have unregistered the products as specified above with no luck. What else can I do? There is no way I can ask people to turn off iMessages just to allow me to receive their messages.
I called apple today and they told me to put my sim in any iphone and turn off imessage. And if that doesn't work i have to wait 30 days from the last time i used imessage for it to deactivate on it's own
Not sure if this problem is solved,but try this!!!
(If you still have the old device)
1. On your old iphone go to "Settings"
2. Scroll down to "Messages"
3. When in the Messages menu, scroll down to "Receive At"
4. In the Recieve At menu, click on your apple ID and sign out. (your Apple ID being there is the problem)
5. DONE!!! Let the new owner put their info in.
Hope this helps!!! 😁🙂😉
I think the problem most people are having is that they don't have access to the old phone, because it has either been sold, stolen or irreparably damaged. How do you switch off iMessages when you don't have an iPhone to switch it off on?
We went through this recently when my wife's phone was stolen. Aside from doing all the tricks above (especially unregistering it at the mysupportprofile website) you can also try logging in on a friend's iPhone, going into their iMessages settings (the "Receive at" section, as mentioned above), logging them out, logging in with your old Apple ID you used to use for iMessages and then switch it off.
Obviously your friend will have to switch iMessages back on again to reverse the process, but this seemed to do the trick with us.
If your friend happens to be on the same network as you, and you still have a micro-SIM card, you could also put that in their iPhone and try the same thing.
All I know is we were plagued with this issue (I had to switch iMessages off just to send my wife a text message on her replacement non-iPhone!) but after doing this, it sorted itself out.
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Edit: Ha ha, @Tempamental, you updated your post with the red text!
Message was edited by: drfrot
Can't deactivate iMessage after switching phones?
