Q: iPhone to Android iMessage bug fix

for whatever it's worth i've been struggling with this "feature" for several days now. my daughter switched from iphone to android/galaxy S4 and my wife and i have been dealing with untangling her # from iMessage for 3 days:

1. followed everything listed everywhere on this thread. disabled imessage/facetime on her old phone, cleared profiles, sacrificed the neighbors dog..  no dice.

2. contacted applecare support 3 times, they revoked a certificate for her iphone, said wait 3 hours.. then said give it 24 hours.. after 48 hours they were struggling to come up with ideas.

3. enabling "send as SMS" was one suggestion but was a pretty weak work-around as every single message first tries to send as imessage, immediately reports a failure(because her phone isn't registered anymore!#@) and then sends as SMS.. BUG.

finally this evening after talking to another support rep, for whatever reason he suggested we take the old iphone and erase/reset. we did this and after it registered back to apple my phone changed behavior.

Now - after the reset when I send her a message it still attempts iMessage first.. then goes as text but all subsequent messages send immediately as text.. deleting/restarting threads with her give same experience.. ok, so better.. now the problem downgraded to a minor nuisance i'm willing to live with.

another interesting tidbit is i had someone with an iphone send her a message who have never messaged her before and for them it goes straight through as SMS, never attempted iMessage for them and yes they have iMessage enabled.

iMessage has been at times very handy but man when it's frustrating its VERY frustrating.

trudeau43

 

Re: iPhone to Android iMessage bug fix

 

Nov 12, 2013 10:40 AM (in response to Pat518)

 

Check that out and I was told that apple advisors see more info then us regular people.

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

 

The solution for this issue is to call 1-800-MYAPPLE and say you need to deactivate your imessage after updating to an non-apple phone since your iPhone friends cant send you messages. They will do the needed steps to remove your number from the iMessage system which after initiated can take a couple hours up to a day. If that does not fix the issue then your contacts are not sending to your phone number and or need to start a new conversation with you. If that does not help it then you are not doing it right or they are not sending to your phone number. The advisors see much more than us consumers can as with most articles which are internal only and even if released to public would not help anyone because you have to have access to their internal systems.

 

 

bad assumptions made on your part. you can follow all the advice on here, on the apple support docs and by talking to applecare reps repeatedly but for some people iMessage just doesn't let go very easily.

as with everything else in this world, it's not perfect. quit assuming that those with persistent issues must be doing it wrong.

My problem is that i no longer have the orignal Iphone and cannot go into setting and switch off Imessage.  The iphone has been Reset and the phone is off the icloud and still cannot recieve text from Iphone users.

It don't matter.  I do have the original phone and I tried all the above and it still tries to send as a iMessage when my iPhone friends try to text me.  Only way they can text me is if THEY turn off iMessage.

if u already had the imessage/facetime certificate revoked by applecare and ur friends are still sending imessages to ur phone u should both delete ur conversations and start them again.

If you cant access you iphone, you'll need to reset the password for your apple ID. My iphone died after I only had it for a year, so I switched to an Android.  Since I could not deactivate imessage on the phone, I had to reset my apple ID.  It's really easy.  Here are the instruction on how to remove your cell number from imessage.

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538

nothing works this is a SCAM

guys, guys, GUYS!

(sorry for raising my voice )

When one makes the 'mistake' of changing from an Apple device to an Android, what then happens with the phone number that was used with the Apple server imessaging then often as not is the same phone number that then is used when changing the apple device to an android device.

When activating the imessaging option - such that one is eligible then to use the apple servers to place imessaging text messaging this is done by taking the users phone number and activating it to the apple imessaging server.

Once the user then changes from the Apple device to an android device the user then MUST call apple support to ask that the imessaing activation is then 'de-activated' this then will solve ALL text messaging issues after changing from an apple device to an android device (sadly waiting good-bye)

Good luck

guys, guys, GUYS!

(sorry for raising my voice )

When one makes the 'mistake' of changing from an Apple device to an Android, what then happens with the phone number that was used with the Apple server imessaging then often as not is the same phone number that then is used when changing the apple device to an android device.

When activating the imessaging option - such that one is eligible then to use the apple servers to place imessaging text messaging this is done by taking the users phone number and activating it to the apple imessaging server.

Once the user then changes from the Apple device to an android device the user then MUST call apple support to ask that the imessaing activation is then 'de-activated' this then will solve ALL text messaging issues after changing from an apple device to an android device (sadly waiting good-bye)

Good luck

Lol...What scam. You know we have told you a million times, call AppleCare and they will fix the issue

Call apple and ask them to revoke your phone number in the I-message system. Took 4 minutes to do it and everything started working within 30 minutes. The apple rep confirmed that was the fix. Hope it works for everyone. I was so frustrated until I came acorss another post instructing the same thing.

I've been reading this post and decided to jump into dissent: I've switched to Android (because run tests on various phones) and to get a fully immersive experience, switched my main SIM instead of keeping the test one. I hate to rain on anyone's parade but I've come to the conclusion that this IS BY DESIGN, maybe since iOS 7.

I still have my iPhone, and I associated it with the test SIM number, therefore "cancelling" iMessage and all that jazz from my phone number, technically.

Even then, people that had me previously in their contacts as iOS client cannot reply to ANY of my texts. Why? Because the option "send as SMS if iMessage is unavailable" was deactivated for everyone. None of them got the popup to offer to send SMS when it failed, save one guys.

Bottom line: send as SMS seems deactivated by defaut and unfortunately, I have to coach everyone I know on how to do it, because most of them aren't tech savvy enough to troubleshoot this on thwir own. Annoying? UNDERSTATEMENT.

What's ever stranger is that seems this is by design: my girlfriend's sister has always been on Android, and she never had issues sending her SMS even though that option was disabled. I assume it's because her iPhone never "understood" that phone number as being an iOS device. But my number was at one point, thus the iPhone is assuming blindly it will always be associated to iOS...

I've swtiched my main SIM to an Android before, back in the iOS 6 days, and I never had issues like this, and nothing is different on my end.

The last part of my evidence is the first night I switched; I took my SIM out of my iPhone and into the S4, but I didn't put the test SIM in the iPhone right away, thus it was no SIM, but still connected to Wifi. But... every single iMessage sent to me got to my iPhone without a hickup. It's only when I put the new SIM in, thus dissociating my iPhone from my number, that the problems started.

For all I love Apple products, this is pushing the ecosystem buy-in a bit far... I still use iMessage on my iPads and Macs, but this Android phone - aside from being a necessity to test for me right now - is starting to grow on me. It's too bad that Apple seems to force our arms.

iMessage is broken, and needs to be fixed quick. It's not up to the stardard Apple seems to put it at, and they need to re-think how they deliver their services. IMO.

I forgot to say the most important thing: I did call Apple Support and they didn't even know what I was talking about when I asked to de-activate my iMessage...?

ios7 automatically turns off the send as sms feature!  everyone is taking the right steps.... Also  tell everyone you know to go into there settings and turn send as sms back on that will fix the problem immeditaly

Absolutely right. However, I find it VERY annoying to have to explain to everyone I know what to do to send me an SMS, because a) everyone expects it to works and b) as I mentioned, most people I know are not tech savvy enough to troubleshoot this on their own and just getting them through the steps is making me insane. I don't remember iOS 6 defaulting to no SMS, and it just seems counter intuitive to me...

It just seems that this integration comes at too high of a price. Apple are usually much better than that at making things easy for the common man.