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Some SMS messages sent to my iPhone go only to iPad - why?

When someone sends an SMS to my phone number (this may be someone without an iPhone, so I suppose not part of the iMessage system), I sometimes see it in the 'messages' on my iPhone but sometimes it doesn't appear there: on the other hand, all messages sent to my phone number appear on my iPad (on the same wifi network as my iPhone, if that matters). If I look at the messages on my iPhone right now, I see messages sent a few days ago, but not one sent yesterday, which is clearly visible in 'messages' on my iPad! I don't think I have changed any parameters lately.

It is obviously vital that all messages (iMessage or straightforward SMS) sent to my phone number should go to the iPhone with that number, specially if I don't have access to my other iOS devices - how can I ensure this?

I have looked at other discussions here but I can't find a straightforward explanation of this. Can anyone help?

iPhone 5, iOS 7.0.3, 16Gb

Posted on Nov 10, 2013 5:05 AM

17 replies

Apr 24, 2014 1:22 PM in response to ruthfrombourne

Yes, you can turn on iMessage on the iPad as well and you should get the messages on both of the devices, but the person who initally started this post mentioned that their iPad was a shared iPad so I didn't recomment turning on iMessage on the iPad. If these steps don't work, you should contact Apple Customer Care as there is obviously a larger issue.

Jul 14, 2014 9:15 PM in response to Living Fossil

I had this annoying problem too, but I FIXED it and now it works again across all my apple devices.

On each of your apple devices go to Settings>Messages and turn off iMessage. Restart your devices. (I have no idea if this is actually part of the solution, but this is what I did before making the rest of the changes.)

Then, go back and turn on iMessage on each device.

Then, open the Send & Receive option under iMessage on all devices. Make absolutely certain that the send/recieve (i.e. "You can be reached by iMessage at) addresses are exactly the same across all devices. Mine had both my email address and my iPhone number listed, and though I checked on both devices to send/receive to/from my phone number, one of my devices automatically changed it to my email address, and it did not change it on the other. Once I unchecked (deleted) the email address and made it just my phone number, I restarted my devices once again, and sent test messages from my daughter's iPod Touch. Voila. Fixed. Messages are now received on both my devices.

Some SMS messages sent to my iPhone go only to iPad - why?