This remembers me how an interoperability fiasco iMessage is. Just for the interoperability issue many iOS users are slowly switching to Whatsapp: you start using it to message your Android buddies at first, then eventually you want to just use a single app... the limiting factor for iMessage to be dismissed completely by some user is the fact that there is no way to message iPad users from Whatsapp, something they should fix IMHO.
The most humorous thing I've seen about iMessage is how it's automatically opt in, with no opt-out should you lose your device or switch to a new (Android) phone.
Our head of IT switched from iPhone and got a new Android phone. Suddenly he found that none of this Apple-using friends were messaging him anymore.
Actually they were, but Apple re-routed their SMSes through iMessage to a dead Apple-account. Without telling anyone about it.
Until he discovered what happened (due to a very angry and ignored-feeling Apple-using wife), he just assumed SMS was broken on Android.
iMessage really shows Apple at its core: So utterly self-centered that it's unable to comprehend that it even needs a interoperability story with the rest of the world.
You're kidding right? It's trivial to turn off iMessage; it's one toggle switch in the settings.
On top of that I've had friends switch away from iPhone to Android; iOS switched to using SMS not but a day later (and I know at least some of them didn't turn it off manually because their iPhone was broken).
He's wrong. I just swapping my iPhone5 for a MotoX a couple weeks ago. iMessage was definitely a pain since I left the (SIM-less) iPhone on at home and my wife's messages went there since it was on the WiFi.
Turn the old phone off and problem solved.
iMessage specifically confirms delivery. That's why you occasionally get the "Send as SMS" prompt if it can't go through for whatever reason.
If there's no device actively logged into iMessage, no attempt is made to send through iMessage. You don't have to "deactivate" anything.
That said, when iOS7 came out, and I logged back into my iPad, and my wife on her iPad Mini, and her iPhone 5, iMessage reenabled on all of them with my phone number.
So that was a bit inconvenient.
That obviously wouldn't happen if you had reset and sold the device.
If you sold the device without a reset you have a lot more to worry about than iMessage I think. Though a password change to your Apple ID, or managing the associated phone numbers there should address the issue.
BTW, SMS on Android... wow. That's probably the shittiest thing about switching. It's hard to appreciate how unreliable, low quality and all around bad SMS/MMS is if you've been using iMessage for a few years.
Messages get split up over 140 characters. You can't forward vCards. MMS take forever and you're lucky if you even get half the messages in a timely fashion in-sequence. It's really truly awful.
I haven't used straight SMS for many years now. I use Google Voice. But before I started using Google Voice, I used to use Handcent SMS which does all of that. Check it out if you are interested - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.handcent.n...
Thanks. I really want to keep my (10 year old) number. Transferring it to Google Voice sounds a little scary. Is that unfounded? Is it really pretty seamless? I want to cancel my contract and go to a prepaid plan anyways. Which is apparently too difficult for AT&T to do over the phone without risk of losing my number. :-/
So... I could go get a GoPhone plan with a new number. Transfer my existing number to Google Voice. When the transfer is complete my old plan will be cancelled, I can swap in the GoPhone SIM, add it's number to Google Voice as a forwarding number, and I've got it all done with improved text/group-messaging? Does that sound about right?
I can confirm this exact thing happened to me. A year ago I switched back to Android and after a week of not receiving messages from most of my friends and numerous calls to AT&T/Apple I figured this out.
Really was one of the most frustrating experiences I've had with customer service.
Yes. You have to alter your Apple-iD or go to Apple's website to "unbreak" SMS on your new non-Apple phone. I'm sure that makes sense and is everyone's first guess when they first end up in a situation like this.
Sarcasm aside: There are comments unlike like yours, which takes it as a granted that everyone should know about these things and how Apple does everything internally.
Ironically enough, they perfectly highlight the self-centeredness of the Apple community and ecosystem. Which was the one thing I complaining about in the first place.
It's not so trivial when your phone breaks and you're stuck with an old Nokia for two weeks. I managed to disable iMessage through some weird lost/stolen procedure through Apple support but that required human intervention. iMessage was pretty new back then, I hope they've since then improved on this (e.g. an option on icloud.com or something).
It is not trivial for my girlfriend. It took her long enough just to work out SMS. To her that settings icon is a scarey place where all kinds of complex life threatening buttons and switches lurk..
Everyone refuting this is missing the point. No one, not even geeks would realize you have to specifically de-activate iMessage before you switch to any other phone.
This exact thing happened to me. I switched back to Android and after a week of not receiving messages from my friends and family it took me hours and quite a few calls (sadly) to both AT&T and Apple before it was figured out.
In fact at first Apple had denied that anything should be wrong, thus all the wasted time figuring this out. Left a really poor taste in my mouth from the whole experience.
Your comment history shows that you tend to lean towards Apple bashing comments, but I was curious about this one and tried it out myself.
I was unable to reproduce this. Took girlfriend's SIM card from iPhone and put it back in her old Android phone. Sent a couple text messages. When it couldn't send it as an iMessage, it failed on my end and asked me to send it as a text message.
To opt-out I had to unregister my devices from my Apple Account, and at start this did not worked because I had an iMessage client in my MBA, even if it was configured to just receive iMessage targeting my email address. A Nightmare.
I think a better way to think of iMessage something that seamlessly replaces text messages when some conditions are met. I mean, you can still text your Android user friends, can't you?
Whatsapp is even worse, AFAIK the protocol is still a jabbered one but closed source.
I write/read my messages mostly from my mac (usually where I'm most of the day -.-) so I'm still using iMessage to chat with the 99% of my friends which owns an iphone/ipad.
Security-wise, yes, Whatsapp is terrible, but as a product, is a pretty impressive success. The lack of a desktop client is indeed an issue, I switched to Android recently and when I need to do plain SMS messaging there is AirDroid for that, but for Whatsapp no good solutions so far.
Try being a user of iMessage then switching to another phone without disabling iMessage in advance. Any Apple user who messaged you through iMessage will continue to send messages to a dead iMessage account.
I'm pretty sure I did this recently - it sent as an iMessage and after a minute or two when the message still hadn't been delivered to the destination phone it fell back on SMS (I'm assuming the iMessage registration times out after a while, though?)
I can confirm this happened to me a year ago and it was extremely frustrating.
I had to call back and forth from Apple/AT&T over the period of two days before they figured out what was happening and disabled it. Missed tons of messages.
uhhhh.... iMessage is opt-in and isn't enabled until you actively sign up for it in settings. You don't want it taking over your SMS & MMS - don't opt-in to it.
In my opinion the way iMessage works natively on an iphone/pad is awesome[1]. You don't ever have to think about it. No separate apps, just one place for communication.
I wish there could be some commonly agreed standard that would include all of the smartphone OS and be implemented similarly.
[1] except when I forget to check 3g before sending a photo and get charged for an MMS :(
There are such standards, they're called SMS and MMS, it's just unfortunate that some greedy bastards are charging through the nose for them, not unlike printer ink.
Even if SMS/MMS were free, the way it operates targets a single device that must have cell service: it is highly convenient to be able to have someone send me a message and have it arrive both on my phone and on my laptop, and have it arrive at my phone even if I am on a plane with a WiFi connection and have no cellular service.
I've heard a lot about Whatsapp and iMessage... Can someone explain why I would want to use either instead of text messaging? Is this basically just MSN/ICQ style messaging on your phone? Why would I need that when I can just use SMS?
SMS costs money and requires a phone. Some people cannot afford texting plans or might not have a cell phone at all (think a teenager). Even if you are capable of receiving SMS, they are destined for a single device: with these alternatives, you get the notification on all of your devices, including your computer (which has a real keyboard and is more convenient for longer conversations). The benefit of iMessage is then to solve these problems in a seamless fashion (assuming you buy Apple hardware, as that's how Apple makes all of their money: hardware): if someone with an iPhone sends a message to someone else with an iPhone, it just notices "oh, hey, this could have been an iMessage", and the result is cheaper and more convenient (as the message goes everywhere, not just to their phone); if the message cannot be sent via iMessage for any reason, it gracefully degrades to SMS.
because it uses mobile internet (gprs, edge, 3G, HSDPA, LTE, etc.) , you can share photos, also you can have chat groups and more stuff, also it's linked to your phone number, instead of a device(BBM) or an email account(iMessage). In some countries that's 10x cheaper than SMS or MMS.
