Update to my previous post. iPhone 6 / ATT / IOS 9.0.2
After 5 HOURS on the phone and on chats to various Apple support people, and restoring my phone twice, backing up twice, and restoring to factory default as starting all over as a "new" phone - yes, twice... the text issue was finally resolved. Remember, I couldn't send texts to anyone, phone calls were not coming in, and the touch screen was staring to not respond anymore. The phone was basically freezing up.
I spoke to two different support people today. The first was very supportive and helpful, but had me backup from the Cloud after restoring to factory default. He said it was safer than restoring from iTunes. I'm not sure he was right. Whatever bug was in the backups since the IOS updates reappeared when I restored from the Cloud. He was, btw, very aware of this glitch and said he'd been dealing with it all day/every day since the update.
Next I had to go to an "Advisor." This guy was not nearly as nice, but then by that point, neither was I. 😠 He went through the whole process with me again... and that's when I had to restore as new phone. All texting functions worked perfectly. We then tried to sync to my last backup on iTunes and all the issues returned. So, one more time of restoring as new phone, and then picking and choosing what apps, music, etc. from iTunes that I actually wanted on the phone. I lost some stuff, but oddly, throughout all of this, my contacts never disappeared.
Also, the clerk in the Apple store yesterday, who couldn't figure it out at all, told me that only the last 30 days of photos from the phone would be saved in the Cloud. Not true. All my pix are still there.
There was no charge for all this, because you can request to have any charges waived if the issue is related to IOS9, 9.0.1, or 9.0.2. The warranty on my phone had just expired about a week ago, but I was told by the Advisor that if they couldn't fix it, they would replace the phone since it hadn't been that long since the expiration. Frankly, at this point, I think they'll waive charges for anyone. But don't quote me on that one.
Keep in mind that I had a severe issue since the updates... not just a matter of blue vs green texts... it was NO TEXTS and a one year old phone was rapidly dying. So, what worked for me:
A ton of patience (and dark chocolate)
Restoring to factory default (groan)
Restarting as "new phone" (louder groan)
Manually adding apps & music I needed from iTunes
Being willing to lose a history of texts, losing a few other sentimental things, and taking the time to reconfigure a lot of stuff in order to have a working phone!
Oh yeah, NOT swearing at the tech people helped, too.
The Advisor ended up knowing what he was doing after all. Now, we wait and see if the phone continues to work.
This update was written by the one remaining brain cell I have left after this experience!!! I hope it helps anyone else who has a similar situation. I feel your frustration. These phones are expensive. A lot of us use them for work, and for a lot of people they are our only phones. The updates should enhance their reliability and functionality, NOT wreak havoc. Good luck!