IOS 12 combining text messages

sandih711 wrote:

First of all Apple is responsible whether they supported it or not,

No. Since it was not supported by Apple, that precisely means Apple is not responsible for it. You and many other people used Apple IDs in a way Apple did not encourage, actively suggest or support, but in fact discouraged and specifically warned against. Whether they knew it was happening is irrelevant.

Using a device or other item in a manner other than directed and supported by the manufacturer removes any responsibility from the manufacturer. All user agreements start with this declaration.

I'm fairly certain Tv manufacturers know people use Tvs near a bathtub or pool. Does that mean they are responsible for people dying electrocuted because of it? No, knowledge does not imply responsibility. As long as you clearly state that its not supposed to be done, what people do is out of the manufacturer's control and cannot be held against them.

Before Family Sharing, there was no way to directly share a purchase true and as such any attempt to share would have been against the license agreement for said purchase. You shared an Apple ID to very much bypass the license agreement and in fact violate the terms of service of the iTunes store. There was no reason to share an Apple ID other that for you to avoid paying twice for an item which for any other item in the world is the expected behavior.

When you go to the movies, each person needs to pay for their ticket, you don't get to share one because you don't want to pay twice for the same thing.

You alone are responsible for the issues you have now.

It is not irrelevant when there was no option to share within your family before IOS 8.0. And by the way, we did try to create the family sharing option when it came out and never could get it to work properly so we just kept things the way they had always been because it worked.

Apple is responsible for making the change to the software with no option to merge or not merge the data. According to Forbes magazine this little upgrade was meant to help people that had multiple phones merge their conversations. So let's say for the sake of argument, someone whom this was intended for had multiple phones numbers 1 for business and 1 for personal. They may have used one Apple ID on the two phones after all the phones belonged to them right? So now their business conversations and personal conversations are combined. How is that a good thing? Sorry before Apple made this change it should have been made clear what they were doing and there should be an way to opt out of merging the conversations. But they conveniently left out this little "upgrade" from the list of things they were changing.

The actual stupidity here is that Apple enabled text combining via Apple ID's to force users into registering for more accounts to benefit themselves. family sharing is a great feature but it should be optional. There is already a unique identifier among the phones...its called a phone number. bullying your customers into making a change is the wrong direction, and since the death of steve jobs, that has been their path...MacBooks with only usbC, iPhones without headphone jacks..and now forced combining of your messages. if i have 4 separate phones, i have them for a reason and want the recipient of my messages to know which phone i am sending from (without digging through the info). This is an issue and if not corrected this will be the last iPhone I purchase. I have always loved apple but this is getting ridiculous and they are no longer delivering on the business model's that made them great. i used a friends pixel yesterday and loved it, Apple is no longer cutting edge and no has the simplified elegance they once had. I remember in 2008 switching my girlfriend's grandmother to an iphone and it was amazing how fast she picked it up but now she is calling me about issues all of the time. The way i see it, this is an iOS bug that is being disguised as a feature. Apple might as well change their logo into a gun when they say "think different"

I am having the same issue! I do not want to set up separate apple IDs for everyone as having one has worked really well for us over the years.

Forbes just reported about this issue:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/gordonkelly/2018/09/30/apple-i os-12-imessage-iphone-xs-max-upgrade-ipad-ios-problem/amp/

Are all the merged conversations deleted from all their devices as well as yours?

Here are the steps I followed that fixed it for my friends, and according to the thread there, its worked for other people too: Re: ios 12 imessage streamlining

Credit goes to Eric Root there.

So is there a consensus about fixing this other than to separate accounts?

My parents are the texts it is combining but visible to me. In one text string. They share an account but both phones are set up to send and receive only from their individual phone numbers.

I don’t understand why it’s mixing the messages

KimJT wrote:

Kind of out of your control and not a great move on Apple since they know lots of people share Apple IDs, wether they support it or not.

That's ridiculous. Apple is not responsible for the stupidity of others.

I also read that several people got their own Apple ID and it did not correct the problem.

Because they didn't bother do the job correctly.

Thanks for the input. I realize having four people on one account is not recommended, however as I stated we never had this issue before. With that said, I took everyone’s advice and we are now on four separate accounts with Family Share going. Guess what? The problem still exists on my phone. It seems to be mostly now between myself and my son and daughter. I can txt my daughter because when I try my son’s txting history appears. The funny part iis that my son’s account was brand new. My daughter is using the original account. I’ve even deleted the txt history on my phone and their Contacts. Did not help AND their txting history magically reappeared. But not daughters. At this point I will be waiting for the first iOS patch and hope they fix it.

With a separate ID for each family member being the fix, how does Apple suggest we limit our teens App Store downloads since they have their own ID?

Why all of a sudden does Apple feel they need to combine family members text accounts using the family ID when they didn’t before?

KiltedTim thanks for the input. I get the fact that Apple never supported sharing ids. The all of a sudden is with iOS 12. Everything was fine until I updated. Also, my family has not updated and their phones are fine. Our Apple accounts are now separate but the issue persists on my phone where txts are combined between my daughter and son.

Very concerning that even after separating your IDs the issue persists. This is a big problem for me and will mean creating 4 new accounts. I definitely do not want to go to all of this effort if it will not resolve the issue. In the short term, I think I am going to have to try an alternate app for messaging.

bobatrek wrote:

How does Apple suggest we limit our teens App Store downloads since they have their own ID?

When you use Family Sharing you can set each child with the option "Ask to Buy." That way you will get a message saying they want to purchase or download an app. You can then approve or decline it. Also, you can set app limits by using Screen Time. However, if you are all sharing an ID then your Screen Time statistics won't help any and any restrictions you set up for apps will combine the time from all devices using that app.

I did set up individual icloud accounts for everyone in my family and made sure that is what they are signed into their individual accounts for iMessage, but the problem has not gone away. Anyone have any other suggestions? How do we file a complaint to apple to get this fixed?