I gotta say I was die hard Apple since the day the first iphone came out - getting a new one on the day THEY came out - but after attempting to switch and running into this massive headache of missed texts and several annoyed friends.....I will NOT be buying any more iphones!!!!!
I will say I finally figured out a fix for the most part but it isnt perfect - and most importantly it doesnt handle the issue of those people that are now texting from their laptops or ipads on wifi 😟 I'm hoping the guy that made the android imessage app somehow brings it back (it was deleted from the store and is now not supported any more (apple lawsuit pressure??)
anyway: things I did that all helped a little:
turn off imesssage AND facetime in the old iphone before switching. if you already gave that phone away, then you have to log in to your account or call apple and make sure these are both fully deactivated - incl the phone # associated with it. deactivating facetime helped complete that process.
the biggest pain is asking ALL your friends and family on iphones to go into their phone settings, under Messages and select "send as sms" when imessage not available. they hsould probably have that turned on anyway.. but still annoying!!! why even have that option. just send it as sms if imessage not avail!!!
ugh..... bad apple.....