Ok...try # 3, making it much nicer and peaceable, because Apple keeps calling this a "rant" and removing my posts 😟
Polymechman, I totally agree. And reading the opinions offered by the people just wanting to argue for the sake of argument is beyond enraging. Do you guys really think we would be at 580 posts if the quick-to-troll-solutions were of any value whatsoever? Almost as frustrating are the "helpful" replies that have been replicated 50+ times like, "hey guys just go do that de-register thing" that we've all obviously tried countless times before, during, and after our hours-long phone calls with the Apple customers service techs. Again...a fix like that isn't gonna work for a problem going to post 300 and above.
I lost my Android phone a year ago and made the mistake of borrowing my friend's old iPhone for just 2 weeks. During that time, iMessage managed to poison my number in about 5 different group messages (having up to 6 iPhone contacts in each). When I got back to Android...well everything that everyone here is hollering about over the 39 pages happened to me. And it's still an issue...I just tested it after I ran into this chain of posts.
Now here is many of our points: It is extremely difficult (for me impossible) to coordinate a group of people to simultaneously delete all the problem messaging threads consisting of months to years worth of texts! Of my 6 contacts, a few are inept, a couple did it, and one just didn't want to loose his history. If one person doesn't succeed in following the instructions it re-poisons the whole messaging group again. It was simply not going to happen without flying everyone in for a group meeting and physically taking all of their phones and doing it myself.
So, here's what worked for me:
I took one of these groups and I started a new message thread that was a copy of the original BUT, added one more number: A land-line...a number that Apple wouldn't recognize as a possible iMessage that would essentially send the text to nowhere. Then I started texting back up to this new group. Done...all messaging worked after that. Because even if some of my friends phones wanted to see me as an iMessage, the landline would "keep it green".
But, still...a year later...it baffles me that I have to see this useless extra number in 5 of my message chains just to have a conversation.
So how is that not Apple's problem to fix? I tried searching for this issue with people who went iPhone to Android to iPhone - not a problem. I urge Apple to fix it immediately...yesterday in fact.
