Q: iOS 7 iMessage won't activate

mines doing this too and ive done everything to try to fix it. I called at&t and they called apple and all they did was tell me to wait and see if it comes back on and they are gonna call me tomorrow to see if it works or not

I have an iphone 5 as well and I am having this issue.  This is really annoying.  Why cant I just download the update and enjoy it!  I already tried reseting the network settings but it didnt work.  Fix it apple!

I have just completed a full reset and restore and notifications, FaceTime and iMessage are all now WORKING :-)

Where do you go to restore?

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4268

i saw on the apple website that you're supposed to wait 24 hours before you restore.. did you wait or did you just go ahead and do it?

Quickest way is probably Settings- General-scroll to the bottom and you should see a restore setting. From there, select what you'd like to restore.

I have reset my phone at least 50 times already and it still says waiting for activation. I was so excited to download ios7 and now im verry disappointed

There is no restore option. only reset

Look in all honesty there are over half a billion people using ios, quite a lot of them would have upgraded to ios 7, so apple's servers would be completely overloaded. I know its not going to help, but you might just have to be patient and wait- Apple will get onto it soon I'm sure. Best thing to do for now is just to live with a regular SMS service. It still does exist.

I'm frustrated as this seems to be connected with push notifications and certain other apps I can't use yet. Please rush this through, Apple.

I have a solution.

Go to you settings, click on general. Then go to reset. From there, go to reset network settings. None of your data is lost, all of your apps are still there, even your pass code. But I tried it and my iMessage is working again. Try that :)

I have the iMessage/FaceTime activation issue as well - on two iPads (mini and ipad4) that do not sport phone connectivity (Wi-Fi only). On my phone (which obviously has phone/SMS connectivity) it activated without issue after some wait.

It occurs to me that the "check your network" error message likely implies that the activation server cannot (currently?) be reached via the internet. I am hoping this is just due to heavy traffic/floofing and goes away quickly... as the ancilliary problems (with push notifications) actually block some applications I use from even starting (well, yeah, bad application design, but still).

For the moment, I'll wait... but if this doesn't resolve, I'll downgrade both devices back to iOS 6.

Poor execution, Apple.

Didn't work for me, tried that.

try this:

http://www.igeeksblog.com/fix-imessage-waiting-for-activation/

The first (rube goldberg-esque) fix worked for me.