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iMessage purgatory

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Re: iMessage purgatory

#81

Post by dfc »

kennywinker wrote: post #66
headShrinker wrote: post #51

> save the green vs. blue bubbles, which are in their own way a sort of weird social/status indicator Save your opinionated anti Apple rhetoric. The color coded indicator allows people to know which features are included in the service, or whether your text was delivered and read or in your case, not delivered...

While color coding totally serves a useful purpose, it's also DEFINITELY used by some as a indicator of status or inclusion in a group. People are super tribal, and will use any indicators available to indicate inclusion or exclusion.

Think different...

Re: iMessage purgatory

#82

Post by dragonwriter »

superuser2 wrote: post #60
kennywinker wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's encouraging that they actually have the capability to fix the issue, but you really shouldn't have to call tech support to regain control of your phone number. When you sign up for iMessages they don't say "We take over your phone number and route all texts from iphones to it and you'll have to call tech support to make us stop!"

How do you propose they fix it? Integrating with the infrastructure of every carrier to detect when a not-iPhone is activated on a line previously occupied by an iPhone is probably expensive and invasive to carriers. Also you don't have to call tech support. You can deregister iMessage from Settings (by turning it off) before you activate a new phone.

> How do you propose they fix it?

Making it possible to deregister by logging into your Apple Account over the web would deal with 100% of the problem, which is people not being aware of the issue before switching off of iOS.

Re: iMessage purgatory

#83

Post by vasundhar »

1. Validation seem to happen when you send the first message to check if given number is associated with iMessage 2. Second time onward it only checks if the sender is in Data Network or not. 3. There is an option in the iMessage settings > Messages > "Send as SMS" if this option is not selected once the device/iAccount knows the other device is iPhone and you are on Data ... it just sends an iMessage.

Turn "Send as SMS" so that it falls back to SMS if the destination is not available for iMessage.

Re: iMessage purgatory

#84

Post by dragonwriter »

MBCook wrote: post #33
gdeglin wrote: post #26

Mashable wrote about this problem months ago: http://mashable.com/2013/09/16/imessage-problem/ A lot of my friends have complained about this problem as well. I'm surprised Apple hasn't moved faster to come up with a solution. Seems like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

They're not Apple customers anymore. It's not a problem (in that it's not effecting their customers, it IS their fault). The best way to get this fixed would probably be for iPhone users who lose the ability to message their friend to complain to Apple, not the former customer. Sad though. Apple is so good at customer service in many contexts. But sometimes they seem to decide on one of these seemingly purposeful bli…

> They're not Apple customers anymore.

Really? I didn't stop using iTunes for music just because I stopped using iPhone.

Re: iMessage purgatory

#85

Post by k-mcgrady »

oalders wrote: post #18
saurik wrote: post #9

What is interesting to me always is that my experience trying to send iMessages to people is usually the opposite: if someone's phone runs out of batteries or they start a phone call (on CDMA, which can't do voice and data simultaneously) I nearly instantly am forced to send them text messages. I also have found the "Delivered" notices very reliable: AFAIK they require a device to actually receive the message. Note h…

My sister has an iPhone, but no data plan. So, if she's out and I want to text her from my iPhone, she needs to make sure she doesn't have iMessages running on her computer at home. If it's on, I text her a bunch of times and I just get the blue bubbles. Then I get a bunch of SMS messages from her saying "where are you? why aren't you texting me back" and hilarity ensues. I guess I could just call her.

If you know she's out (and therefore unlikely to have access to iMessage) you can force an SMS. Press and hold the blue bubble and you will get the option to 'Send as SMS message'.

Re: iMessage purgatory

#86

Post by dfc »

headShrinker wrote: post #51

> save the green vs. blue bubbles, which are in their own way a sort of weird social/status indicator Save your opinionated anti Apple rhetoric. The color coded indicator allows people to know which features are included in the service, or whether your text was delivered and read or in your case, not delivered...

This was hardly anti-Apple rhetoric, it was sociocultural commentary.

Re: iMessage purgatory

#87

Post by retroafroman »

shurcooL wrote: post #49

I find it interesting how so many people still find it acceptable in 2014 to be using a "phone number" as their id. It's a number you can't even pick yourself: you _pay_ to get a randomly assigned digits, at best with the ability to reroll (also not always free). To me, it feels like someone using an `@aol.com` email in 2014. Or a rotary phone.

In one foreign country that I know of (Mongolia), can pick from a list of available phone numbers when you sign up for service. They also hold them as commodities which can be bought or sold, as some of the older numbers had a numbering scheme which made them seem more prestigious. Each network has different numbering schemes, so you can tell what network someone is using by their number. Unfortunately, networks also charge more (or at least used to) for texts/calls between networks than within the network.

Re: iMessage purgatory

#88

Post by K0nserv »

How can the engineering team be clueless on how to fix this? Now I admit that I don't know the inner workings of the iMessage protocol and servers, but presumably all that needs to be done is to disassociate the number with the Apple ID. If I were to guess this would involve dropping a row in a table somewhere.

Re: iMessage purgatory

#89

Post by miketuritzin »

jc4p wrote: post #30

I went through this last month when I switched to the Nexus 5, had no clue I wasn't getting messages until someone with an iPhone tweeted at me asking why I as ignoring them. However, all it took from me was a call to Apple's customer service, I told them I had just switched off my iPhone and no longer got texts from people with iMessage and they immediately sent me to a tech that fixed the problem for me. Have you b…

I am incredibly annoyed with Apple about this same issue. I also switched to a Nexus 5.

I called the number you listed, and they confirmed that iMessage is already turned off for that number (which I did on my iPhone after switching to a Nexus 5 as well).

Most of my friends' iPhones will still send iMessages to me, and most of the time their phones don't even say delivery of the messages failed.

The tech support guy at 1-800-MY-APPLE told me that I should ask all of my friends to remove their existing text message threads with me from the messaging app. As the only proposed solution to my problem, this is already annoying enough. To make matters even worse, I just had one of my friends do exactly what they suggested, and his phone is STILL trying to send me iMessages.

It's unbelievable that Apple shows this little regard for their former customers. (Not to mention the fact that as an owner of several Apple products, I'm actually a current customer.)

Re: iMessage purgatory

#90

Post by agos »

dragonwriter wrote: post #82
superuser2 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you propose they fix it? Integrating with the infrastructure of every carrier to detect when a not-iPhone is activated on a line previously occupied by an iPhone is probably expensive and invasive to carriers. Also you don't have to call tech support. You can deregister iMessage from Settings (by turning it off) before you activate a new phone.

> How do you propose they fix it? Making it possible to deregister by logging into your Apple Account over the web would deal with 100% of the problem, which is people not being aware of the issue before switching off of iOS.

AFAIK this is already possibile

Edit: someone on this thread has confirmed

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