iPhone to Android iMessage bug fix

zakstern wrote:

Apple should be ashamed of themselves for this - very consumer unfriendly.

I agree. My experience has completely changed how I feel about Apple. I can't believe they haven't been sued.

tking399 wrote:

zakstern wrote:

Apple should be ashamed of themselves for this - very consumer unfriendly.

I agree. My experience has completely changed how I feel about Apple. I can't believe they haven't been sued.

its kinda hard to sue succesfully when u signed the user agreement allowing them to do exactly what they did. also kinda hard to sue someone that has more money then the us government.

Switched from an iPhone to an HTC 8x in Dec 2012.

Text messaging worked for over a year and then started to not get texts from my iPhone owning friends about a month ago. Called up Apple and they removed me from the iMessaging system.

This fixed the issue until this week when my friends upgraded to the latest iOS update. Since then anyone who updated their OS can no longer text me again. Some of them get an error, some don't

Called up Apple again and was on for over 30 mins. Got passed to the senior so called "genius" and his pompus response was it's not our fault, but you need to get a new phone number. This was my first ever cell phone number which I've had for 14 years. If I was running my business from this number it would have been a disaster / would have lost a lot of money.

They said my phone number is no longer in their system, so it's not a problem that Apple caused, its a problem with your friends iPhones. He didn't accept it was an Apple issue or that Apple caused the problem. It was like speaking to a robot. I tried to explain the issue several times, but he wouldn't listen.

All in all pathetic customer service.

I think I've figured out what they are doing. As Apple is running scared they are hijacking people's phone numbers in a lame attempt to try and keep them from switching to a non Apple product.

I've bought 3 iphones and a macbook pro over the years. Needless to say I'll never buy another Apple product as long as I live. Not even one song from iTunes.

nice conspiracy theory there.

if the number has been unregistered out of the system there literally IS NOTHING an apple advisor of any rank can do about it. the most that can be advised at that point is to have u tell ur iphone using contacts to turn off their imessaging and back on to update that u are no longer in the imessage system. then if that doesnt work for whatever reason they should delete any conversations they have had with u, delete u as a contact, and then re-add u as a contact.

and to follow up on the belief that apple is sinisterly trying to hijack people's numbers? ok. that would mean that a board meeting was held where they literally came to the informed decision to do that and then sent the order to the programmers to implement that into all iphones.

like i said, nice theory. completely bogus. but nice.

zelous wrote:

nice conspiracy theory there.

if the number has been unregistered out of the system there literally IS NOTHING an apple advisor of any rank can do about it. the most that can be advised at that point is to have u tell ur iphone using contacts to turn off their imessaging and back on to update that u are no longer in the imessage system. then if that doesnt work for whatever reason they should delete any conversations they have had with u, delete u as a contact, and then re-add u as a contact.

and to follow up on the belief that apple is sinisterly trying to hijack people's numbers? ok. that would mean that a board meeting was held where they literally came to the informed decision to do that and then sent the order to the programmers to implement that into all iphones.

like i said, nice theory. completely bogus. but nice.

I actually don't really know why I'm wasting my time writing back. All I was initially trying to do was help others who are having the same trouble and sharing the same frustration as I am. This is what has happened to me (and, yes - at least in my situation - the engineers were aware of the problem.)

To your point - believe what you want to believe. Unintended consequences occur from time to time, so it would not "mean that a board meeting was held where they literaly came to the informed decision to do that" . Now, whether management of a company does nothing (or is unable to) to fix a known problem for several years is a different thing all together. My guess is that it's probably not on Apple's list of priorities to allow people to easily port their own phone numbers whenever / wherever they wish. Regardless of whether any of this runs afoul of any FCC laws or antirust violations, I have no idea. What I do know is that it was a horribly frustrating customer experience (except for my Senior Apple Advisor, who was awesome!). While the problem has been fixable for many, it has not been for others. Luckily for you, it sounds like you haven't encountered any of the problems that I and many ohers have had.

If Apple can break it remotely from an iOS update but can't fix it in any other way than user intervention on every iphone it goes to show how poorly enginnered it was in the first place.

As for the customer experience. The first guy I spoke to was really nice and apologetic. The senior guy just didn't accept it was an Apple problem and didn't see the issue with switching to a different phone number. He even said, I just texted you and it works, so I had to explain to the senior "genius" that it only affects people who already had me down as their contact. Enough said....

Reading comprehension in this thread is mind boggling.... in a bad way.

Apple supporters keep saying there is nothing more Apple can do to fix this issue, so everyone should stop complaining. True statement, however not responsive to the gripe, which is:

Apple detractors keep saying this was a poorly engineered service if the end result is switching away from iPhone causes other iPhone users to send text messages into a void. Also a true statement.

I think we can all agree at this point there is nothing more to be done - Apple has a limited fix that works for some, not for others. Instead of a resolution thread this has turned into an Apple bashing thread. Intentional or not, when Apple introduced a service, that they control, that hijacked an already existing service that they didn't control (iMessage over SMS), and then broke that existing service for users that left the eco-system, people were bound to get ****** about it.

You Apple fanboys can keep clinging to the idea that they did nothing wrong because they have done everything they can to fix it - that's stupid. The fix barely works, and we're justified in being ****** that the problem exists in the first place. You can say Apple owes us nothing - that's stupid. Apple is one of the - if not THE - top brand in the world. It is in their interest not to **** people off over a 2 year old iPhone when most of us probably also spend thousands on other Apple products. In my house between my wife and I, we have 2x 15" Macbook Pro's - top of the line $3k each; a 13" Macbook Pro, 2 iPads, and another iPhone. And we had no intention of abandoning that pattern, e.g. we would continue to purchase Apple products. But as soon as a company starts behaving like this, people get ******, buying patterns change. You hipsters with your Apple stickers don't affect that reality, no matter how loudly you champion Apple greatness on these support forums.

Very unusual thread for very strange people with very bizarre situations I have no doubt that Apple can stop your friends from texting you even years from now. Got to stop typing, CIA is watching over my left shoulder and FBI with NSA over right one.

Instruction for newcomers and normal folk still the same: contact Apple to revoke phone number. If one of your friends is still having problem, call Apple with him on the line problem is with his phone.

Instructions for special people: join my lawsuit against Microsoft. I stopped using Windoze and now I can't open those .doc attachments people email me all the time. Bad Apple, you are next.

Collecting signatures here for suit here.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=7FpXfw0M-YI

djfiii wrote:

I think we can all agree at this point there is nothing more to be done - Apple has a limited fix that works for some, not for others.

I don't agree. If a user can fix this through a series of steps on their iphone, Apple should be able to fix it with an iOS update. If they don't they are either rubbish at their job, or don't care as it only affects people who are no longer Apple customers.

As Apple is not fixing the issue, we may as well continue to bash them in the distant hope that enough negative publicity gets them to get off their lazy backsides and prioritise a fix for this.

True; certainly nothing preventing them from pushing an update that addresses this. I guess I meant, there seems to be nothing more they *will* do since evidence of this problem goes back to 2011.

mbco1975 wrote:

djfiii wrote:

I think we can all agree at this point there is nothing more to be done - Apple has a limited fix that works for some, not for others.

I don't agree. If a user can fix this through a series of steps on their iphone, Apple should be able to fix it with an iOS update. If they don't they are either rubbish at their job, or don't care as it only affects people who are no longer Apple customers.

As Apple is not fixing the issue, we may as well continue to bash them in the distant hope that enough negative publicity gets them to get off their lazy backsides and prioritise a fix for this.

replying on their website support forums with rants on apple ***** is not the way to raise publicity of the subject. all ur doing here is cluttering the forum so that people who are actually looking for answers to their problems cant find the troubleshooting steps that the people who are actually trying to help are posting.

go here to rant if u actually want someone at apple to hear u - apple.com/feedback.

here are the troubleshooting steps for this issue as it stands.

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5185

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5759?viewlocale=en_US

before calling applecare to have ur # unregistered by them:

if u have the old iphone still, turn off imessages and facetime.

if u do not have the old iphone still, text "STOP" to 48369. this should prevent anything apple wise from being associated with ur apple id at all.

both steps take up to 24 hours. please wait until those 24 hours are up until continuing with further steps.

if u did at least one of the 2 steps above, waited 24 hours, and ur iphone using contacts still cant text u:

call applecare at (1-800-275-2273) and have an apple advisor revoke the # out of the imessage/facetime system. if u followed the previous steps then it should already be out of the system but it never hurts to check with apple itself.

then have ur contacts turn off imessage and turn it back on. this should update the change with ur contact info. while they are in the correct page also have them make sure that they have send as sms turned on in settings>messages.

if that doesnt work, then have them delete every conversation they have with u in it, delete u as a contact, and then re-add u and try to start a new conversation.

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again i would just like to say that unless u are posting solutions to the problem or are looking for said solutions, please stop filling up this thread with complaints. there are other websites for that.

Agreed, I'm done ranting.

Although, I will reiterate that suggesting that I should have to manually reach out to 300+ contacts, one at a time, just so they can delete any existing threads, delete my contact record, readd me, test out a new text exchange - is not a reasonable part of the proposed fix. Especially since Apple could simply push an iOS update that would force iPhones not to continue sending iMessage (which in theory they already do, but clearly not successfully as evidenced by this thread).

Anyway, rant concluded. Hope everyone gets their SMS back.

Eh initially I posted the solution that Apple care provided to me. Did I add a few digs? Of course because I'm annoyed at the pathetic service I've had.

The other posts since then have been due to you defending them for no reason and reposting stuff you've already posted before. It seems its you thats cluttering up this forum more than me.

Anyway, signing off, so no point in responding to this. I'm done with Apple.

I have done all "fixes" and the issue has gotten "somewhat better" but I still miss texts from people. I have filed a complain with the Federal Trade Commission and I have learned that there is a growing voice in that direction from lots of Andriod switchers. I suggest anyone else who reads this forum to go to "www.ftc.gov" and log a complaint. I have also contacted a Senator here in Texas about this issue. Will this help? Maybe not, but I would think if enough noise gets made someone will take a good hard look at this.

Refuse to give up my Mac but I'm done with singing the praises of Apple. Since Jobs died they have gotten fat and the innovation has stagnated. Samsung is a superior product by far, will just hope I don't miss something important.

just talked to a senior advisor for apple and they told me the 7.1 update fixes the issue where iphone using contacts weren't receiving the notification of their contacts having their imessage deactivated.

so as long as your contacts update their software and you get your imessage deactivated either using the old phone or by having applecare do it you should be good.

in other words. apparently apple HAS been working on the problem and posted an update to fix the issue. hmmm.