
iOS holding my phone number hostage = the worst bug I’ve ever experienced - benstein
http://blog.benjaminste.in/post/75389520824/ios-holding-my-phone-number-hostage-the-worst-bug
======
RyanZAG
Just think, if you hadn't used a proprietary messaging solution as your
default contact method, you'd be able to easily control how you receive the
messages. Maybe stuff like this happening is a good thing as it drills home
the point the 'crazy free software lunatics' have been going on about for some
time. Having this kind of thing happen to someone makes the stuff FSF+co says
a bit more relevant and ultimately helps everyone.

~~~
owenwil
So, what's an open-source alternative to iMessage that lots of people use?

~~~
leephillips
Email? Really, now that everyone has email on their phones, why bother with
SMS or these SMS-like systems? Email is more reliable, more flexible, and
seems to be just as fast in practice.

~~~
nknighthb
The smallest email in my inbox right now has 913 bytes of headers and 132
bytes of content. Between the various hops, including through a spam filter,
it took 13 seconds just to land on my server. It was then an additional 0 to
300 seconds before each of my devices knew it existed, because push remains
black magic when dealing with clients and servers from different
authors/companies.

This is not comparable to the normal performance of SMS or iMessages.

------
nwienert
This has been happening for over 2 years now. I've met multiple people in real
life (including total non-techies) that have run into this. It's more common
than you'd think. Basically anyone moving from an iPhone to Android (or any
other phone I assume) will have this problem.

At this point, it's obvious Apple is ok with this. It's a giant "fuck you" to
anyone moving away from them and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth knowing
they do this purposely.

~~~
eridius
That's incredibly presumptuous of you to claim Apple is doing this purposely.
It seems pretty obvious to me that it's a non-trivial fix for Apple, and that
there's simply no good incentive for them to prioritize fixing this over the
myriad other things their engineers could be spending their time on.

~~~
saltysugar
Apparently it doesn't have much priority on their list considering the problem
has been around for two years. If you think about how fast the mobile
landscape has changed, this is no excuse for Apple

~~~
eridius
2 years? 2 years is nothing. There are thousands upon thousands of open bug
repots on Apple products older than 2 years.

~~~
saltysugar
Bugs are often sorted according to priority. It's clear that Apple doesn't
care enough to prioritize this problem.

------
sneak
Preventative step: set your outbound iMessage "caller id" to your email
address instead of your phone number. Do this now, before you're bitten by the
bug. (Apple's degraded QA as of late on iOS means you'll also have to change
it back on ALL your devices on the account any time you add or remove any
devices or numbers to iMessage or FaceTime on that Apple ID, too.)

This way, all your contacts are iMessaging with your email address, not your
phone number. It means it will keep working when you travel internationally
and switch SIM cards, and it means you can disable it easily via your Apple ID
should you ditch the iPhone.

~~~
shurcooL
Yes, this is a good idea.

But it's an extension of "stop relying so much on a non-free, proprietary
9-digit number as your id only to be at the mercy of your phone carrier".

Personally, I use a data-only plan and feel much better than when I had a
carrier-provided phone number.

~~~
lukeschlather
This has nothing to do with the phone carrier.

In the US phone numbers are much more open than any other means of identifying
someone you want to contact.

"non-free" is a bizarre thing to say in this context. No identifier is going
to be free as in speech - that would defeat the purpose. If you want to have
assurance that you can keep the identifier it had better not be free as in
beer either - the provider of the identifier could revoke it at any time.

Some sort of government-issued communications identifier might provide the
needed benefits, but actually the phone number is the best solution to the
problem that we have.

If you're relying on an email address, you're in much shakier territory.
(Unless you own your own domain and email hosting solution, and unless you're
a multinational corporation it's likely to be less reliable than other
options.)

~~~
shurcooL
I'm pretty sure it's quite possible and easy to create an email address, be it
from gmail or another email provider.

That email address will be valid and accessible as long as you have internet
access. You can travel, use Wi-Fi or cellular data, and it will work.

You can create a new email address for free.

In that context, getting a phone number is much more limited and not free (you
need to pay for a voice plan, etc.). And your ability to use said number from
other countries (roaming) is limited and expensive.

------
3pt14159
Some "bugs" are only fixed with class action lawsuits. This "bug" has been
around for a while now and Apple _can_ fix it they just don't prioritize bugs
that allow people to switch away from them easily.

It is fraud to fail to deliver messages to my phone when I've switched phones.
It shouldn't take me calling you, it should happen automatically and in under
a day.

------
habosa
I know a ton of people who have this problem, it's a huge issue. My mom
recently switched to a Moto X and couldn't get any text messages from my
sisters. When she called Apple for support, they told her they would not help
her unless she paid a fee for phone support. Read that again: they wanted her
to pay extra money to properly leave their ecosystem. If they wanted her to
come back to Apple it backfired, she'll never touch another iDevice after that
snub.

------
rdoherty
I'm experiencing the same problem, I've tried:

1) Turning off iMessage on old iPhone 2) Removing phone number from my Apple
account 3) Friends removing my cell # from their address books

and a few other random things. Nothing has fixed it. The only way a friend
with an iOS device can SMS me is if _they_ turn of iMessage. This is a pretty
huge bug on Apple's part.

~~~
Nicholas_C
Same here. Incredibly frustrating.

Did you unregister your device(s)? After doing this I think people's iPhones
know your number isn't an iPhone anymore and after it fails to send the
iMessage it sends it as a regular message. The below link helped me:

[http://support.vodafone.com.au/articles/FAQ/How-to-
deactivat...](http://support.vodafone.com.au/articles/FAQ/How-to-deactivate-
iMessage-if-you-re-switching-from-iPhone)

I'm still having occasional problems with not getting texts but for the most
part it's fixed.

~~~
rdoherty
Yup, I unregistered my devices too. Will double check and follow that link's
instructions.

------
MehdiEG
Same problem here and I know quite a few people who've had these issues as
well.

iMessage is a huge mess - even if you're still using your iPhone. Back in
December, when I was still on iPhone, I went in a month-long trip abroad.
Since data roaming still costs a fortune, I had data switched off most of the
time. I'd just connect on wifi whenever possible and occasionally switched on
the data connection when I really needed to get online while on the go.

Yet, despite the fact that I was roaming and that I had my data connection
switched off, most of the text messages that my iOS-using contacts sent me
were sent via iMessage instead of plain SMS. Which meant that I'd only get
their message when I went back online, hours and sometimes days later.

~~~
hablahaha
I know of a relationship that ended because of iMessages. They had had a fight
and he texted her to apologize and then he never received any responses (they
went straight to his computer) and then she got more upset, he thought she
wasn't talking to him, etc.

~~~
10feet
Texting an apology is never the best idea anyway, even without Apple messing
it up.

~~~
a3n
The type of message sent should not matter at all. (I realize that's not what
you're saying.)

And people have their own individual and transient needs. If a text message
makes it easier to say you're sorry, then there's nothing wrong with it.
Particular if that's already an accepted and normal way to communicate between
the parties.

The problem wasn't that he sent it by text, the problem was that the
relationship was too weak to withstand N hours of no communication. It was
going to break anyway.

~~~
hablahaha
Haha, yeah it wasn't exactly mean to last, but this didn't help matters. Hey,
you could even say iMessages helped them do the right thing. Good guy
iMessages.

------
CatMtKing
Ah, this sounds familiar. I recently got a new cell phone number, using an
Android phone. Some days later, a few of my fellow carpoolers told me after
texting me that they were getting replies from someone else telling them they
had the wrong number! I was stumped, until we noticed all the people who were
failing to text me were using iPhones.

I texted my own number using one of their phones and asked the mystery
recipient if she recognized my phone number. Apparently, it was her old
number: still attached to her iMessage account. She removed it, but weeks
later, I still don't receive any texts from iPhone users. Guess I'll have to
check in with AT&T/Apple about it.

tl;dr: This bug can affect you even if you have never owned an iPhone.

~~~
PeterisP
This seems a big issue then - permanently caching phone numbers is dangerous;
around here some 55% users are on prepaid simcards, and thoae numbers often
get recycled, i.e., given out to someone else after it stops being used and
teen-25 audiences tend to churn through many numbers (no idea on why they do
so, i've had a single number forever, but that's how it is)

A few years earlier almost all of them wouldn't be on iOS, but now they are
often using iPhones (sometimes old handmedowns) on those disposable numbers,
so if it breaks messaging when changing numbers... Then that will be a problem
for _many_ people.

------
darkpicnic
Exact. Same. Issue. All their solutions do not work. I've reset Apple ID and
wiped all my old iOS devices. Roughly 90% of my friends cannot text me
anymore.

What's comical about this is how easy it is to fix: have a cache that breaks
weekly; upon new text message, ping Apple HQ and see if device is iOS and has
iMessage installed; great, save for a week.

~~~
macspoofing
You can do better than that. User marks iMessage account as 'inactive'. Next
time someone tries to send to his address via iMessage, ping their client with
an "invalidate-cache-and-send-as-SMS" status code, and it's done. Everything
is handled transparently to the sending user.

No matter what, it would require some sort of update.

------
0x0
This article claims resetting your apple ID password will disassociate the
imessage phone number:
[http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538](http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5538)

~~~
benstein
Yup. Tried resetting everything possible. So did Apple support. And they
escalated to engineers who also said they have no more records of my number
server-side.

But there's no way to clear the client side caches.

~~~
ac29
Do iOS apps not have a clear data/clear cache system level option like android
does?

If not, what do you do to wipe an app's data?

~~~
noselasd
It does. Since it's cached on every device of the people that has sent
messages to him, each one of them will either

1\. Wipe out the iMessage data - which is all their message history.

or

2\. Manually delete every message/thread the OP has been involved in.

That's not going to happen.

~~~
fpgeek
I believe you're missing ac29's point. Android allows applications to
distinguish between cached data and "regular/permanent" data. It also allows
users to clear them separately.

Logically, the Apple ID / phone number mapping seems like it should fall under
cached data (e.g. it can be regenerated and does need to be re-checked from
time to time). If the iOS Messaging app properly implemented this distinction,
users (or Apple) could clear this cached mapping without touching anyone's
message history. Sadly, it sounds like it hasn't been implemented that way,
so...

------
bcj
The same thing happened to me when I broke my iPhone a few months back. I
ended up speaking to 3 or 4 different representatives explaining that I had
removed the phone number from all my iDevices, but couldn't turn iMessages off
from the device. I went so far as borrowing a friend's phone, and getting a
new phone number associated with my Apple account. The solution that ended up
working for me was changing the password associated with my Apple account.

I don't understand why Apple doesn't have a solution to this yet. It was
obviously going to be a problem from the start.

The people I feel worst for are those who get a phone number that used to
belong to an iPhone user. They may miss texts without any idea what is going
on, and without any recourse to fix it.

------
nirajd
I had the same issue when switching to a Nexus 5.

[https://appleid.apple.com](https://appleid.apple.com) Try going here and
removing the phone number from the "Phone Numbers" section. I still have
friends who try to message me and their iOS assumes I'm using iMessage. The
"retry as SMS" feature is the only method that works.

~~~
stevenelliottjr
Also make sure to tell them "Send as SMS" is enabled on their iMessage
settings. This will automatically try to re-send it as a text without manual
intervention.

------
tripngroove
I recently had this exact problem.

THE FIX: Log in to your Apple support profile, go to the devices section, then
unregister all the iOS devices associated with your account.

------
juliangindi
Changing your number should not be the solution to this problem. I recently
switched from iOS to Android and have been experiencing the same issues. The
OP's title says it best, "IOS holding my phone number hostage." Changing my
number would require an incredible amount of inconvenience. Apple needs to
address this immediately.

------
sunsu
I had this same problem and recently solved it by \- putting my sim back into
my old iOS phone. \- reactivating iMessage on the old phone WITH the sim
inside of the old phone \- wait to make sure the phone fully registers with
iMessage servers \- deactivate iMessage WITH the sim inside the phone

After following these steps, I'm not problem free. I had tried many times
before to reactivate/deactivate iMessage, but never with the sim back in the
device.

~~~
arkonaut
Not problem free or 'now' problem free? Would love to know if this solution
works. Thanks!

------
TWAndrews
I recently made exactly ths same switch, and unsurprisingly had exactly this
issue. I resolved it by turning on my iPhone, putting it in airplane mode, and
turning on wireless.

I then went into Settings >> Messages and turned off iMessage. All the iPhones
that had previously been trying to send me messages via iMessage then started
routing messages to me via text.

------
owenwil
The saddest part about this story is perhaps the fact that iMessage was
supposed to be open and allow other phone builders to use it. Having it truly
cross-platform in the first place would have avoided a situation like this :(

~~~
abrowne
Facetime was supposed to become an open standard†, but I don't think Apple
ever said that about imessage.

† From the WWDC 2010 keynote: “And we're going to take it all the way. We're
going to the standards bodies, starting tomorrow, and we're going to make
Facetime an open industry standard.”

------
TazeTSchnitzel
>IOS

Hacker News's automatic capitalisation strikes again! I thought this was about
Cisco IOS for a moment.

------
relix
Did you try putting your SIM card back into your iPhone, then going to
Settings > Messages and turning off iMessage over there? Make sure you have an
internet connection too so it can "broadcast" your new status to Apple HQ.
This is what I do when I'm abroad and don't want to dataroam. It's possible
you already tried that and it won't make a difference - I don't use group
messaging a lot.

~~~
zht
"Let me recap: I no longer have iPhone"

~~~
Haywain
This would also work if a friend lent him their phone.

Of course, he'd have to do a backup > wipe > setup phone with his iCloud
account & SIM > change settings > wipe > restore from backup... but, honestly,
this is the process I had to do and it took about 5-10 mins tops.

I had this same exact problem, and this was by far the easiest solution. Just
need to have a friend willing to you let you manhandle their phone for a
little while.

------
natch
What is the radar number for this bug? You did file a bug report, right?
[http://bugreport.apple.com](http://bugreport.apple.com)

If not... you should do so.

If you give people the radar number they can duplicate it at that same site
and raise its priority.

~~~
natch
crickets...

------
noblethrasher
The same thing happened to my Mom when she switched to Android this past
Christmas. The solution in that case was to get her to connect her old iPhone
to the Internet via Wi-Fi, and then disable iMessages.

I assume that you would need to disable iMessages on all your iDevices in
order to remedy the problem.

------
m_mueller
Wouldn't it work to lend an iPhone, turn it on with the SIM holding the number
and then switch off iMessages there? Wouldn't this invalidate the cached
account in other iPhones?

~~~
morpher
No this does not work. Group MMS from iohones are still dropped (as the
article clearly describes).

~~~
m_mueller
I don't see how the group MMS show that this wouldn't work - the question is
whether cached accounts get purged through this client action, both on server
and peers.

------
baby
I know it's annoying but the best solution here just seems to change your
number. Don't lose your mind over this one.

edit : seems like people don't understand my post. If you have a voice, the
good thing to do is to make a blog post and submit it to websites like HN. The
guy did it, now what can he do if he needs a quick fix? If he's in rush?
Change number. It's really not that terrible and I do it every year without
trouble.

~~~
billpg
I've had the same number for 16 years. Ported it between four different
networks.

(I still get recreuiters calling who have clearly only read a CV of mine from
10 years ago.)

~~~
baby
It's never a good idea to rely on one number, or one email address, etc... The
day you lose this you lose all your connections.

~~~
sharpneli
While one might lose their email losing a phone number is way way harder.

I'm not sure how it works in US but in Finland you have guaranteed
transferring across operators. Guaranteed as in fines will tick if the
operator from which the number is transferred away is having some 'problems'.
Not surprisingly those kind of problems are almost nonexistent.

------
danielsju6
I'm currently having to deal with this too. The best solution that I found was
switching my number and keeping the iPhone, jailbreaking it, and installing
BiteSMS with forwarding.

It's kinda a pain and of course I have to pay to keep the iPhone around.

------
vacri
Rather than telling your friends to delete their entire history, what's the
problem with asking them to just make a new contact listing? I'm not familiar
with the gubbins of iMessage.

~~~
mdmarra
I think the problem is that asking everyone that's ever messaged you from an
iOS device to modify something on their handset every time someone in their
contacts switches platforms isn't a reasonable request.

------
stevenelliottjr
Changing your Apple Id Password works like a charm too. It will log you out of
your iMessage services. I did this when I switched to Galaxy Note 3.

------
blueskin_
>But to ask my wife, my sister, my best friends, and literally every person I
know to delete THEIR message histories? You’ve got to be kidding me!

That is true, but not because of photos - don't they keep backups?

I guess this is why not to use vendor lock-in software instead of a globally
accepted standard for basic communication.

------
nej
I too switched to Android after Apple released iOS7 and have been having
similar issues. The only solution I've found so far that still doesn't fix
100% of the problems is by asking friends and relatives to log out of
iMessage, restart their phone then log back in.

------
feelstupid
Solution wise, even if iOS devs created a fix to purge the cache older than X
weeks and to recechk it would still require all your friends to install the
update before it takes affect, so I don't even see a fully fixed and timely
solution to this.

------
qubitcoder
I've had similar problems when switching between Android & iOS devices over
the years with both T-Mobile and AT&T. It was a bit perplexing the first
couple times it happened. Then I got used to the drill.

The solution, at least in my situation, was to call the carrier. Apple wasn't
at fault.

Both T-Mobile and AT&T would fail to complete all steps required for the
transfer, and therefore still showed the old device as the active one. A
simple call resolved the issue.

In a couple instances, AT&T & T-Mobile would resolve the issue. Then I'd see
the same behavior again weeks later. Sure enough, they had reverted to the old
device on my profile. Calling them again resolved the issue.

------
happywolf
For those who want to extol the virtues of FSF, do note the following:

1) GSM is neither free(both in free beer and free to distribute) nor open-
source 2) The phone that you are using, no matter how 'free' the software are,
the hardware are mostly proprietary and those manufacturers aren't very FSF
friendly (now getting better, but still way to go) 3) Phone manufacturers tend
to add proprietary drivers/apps on top of Android, which renders the whole
system not 100% free software either, so by saying iOS is closed-source, it is
kind of like pot calling kettle black.

------
emmelaich
This has to be _the_ most common issue with caches anywhere anytime.

When and how do you invalidate.

My own example - I have Youtube comments that were up for a few hours before I
deleted them. They still appear on my G+ history :-(

------
myhf
This is a serious problem and I'm gonna let him finish, but I get a huge
amount of schadenfreude from hearing about the suffering of someone who sends
a lot of group MMSes.

------
sandymcm
My daughter had a similar problem. She has no data plan on her iPhone and she
found that texts from some friends seemed to be delayed. Messages were not
being sent/received until she connected to Wi-Fi.

To fix, her friends who previously used iMessage to reach her had to start a
new SMS conversation (or turn off iMessage entirely). If her friends just
continued the conversations that started via iMessage, she could not get them
via SMS.

------
afterburner
Wow. I switched to Android before iMessage came out, but I sure as heck will
triple check if this has been fixed before ever consider an iPhone again.

------
vrikis
What's worse is that Apple iMessage servers seem to cache your phone number
for a long time too... Even new message threads from my friends were trying to
send as iMessage, even long after I got rid of my iPhone, disabled iMessage
everywhere, and deleted any association of my phone number I could find. (I
too switched from iOS to Android.) I find this crazy, that Apple lock you in
like that.

------
mergy
Also, the default messaging app in Android may or may not be helpful. I've
found Ninja to be the better way to go when dealing with SMS with the Apple
folks yet to leave iOS.

[http://mergy.org/2013/12/problems-getting-group-smsmms-
from-...](http://mergy.org/2013/12/problems-getting-group-smsmms-from-ios-on-
android-get-ninja-sms/)

------
jobu
I've noticed lately that texts to people switching from iPhone to Android will
fail and require user interaction.

When did this change? I recall texting a friend a couple years back, and it
automatically failed over to SMS. I remember this explicitly because I was in
Mexico at the time, and it led to a few extra bucks in special charges for
texting in a foreign country.

~~~
msh
It is a option on the sender phone if it should use system in case of failure.
Maybe the default have changed?

------
mrcharles
I had this same problem and the best case fix seems to be to reset your Apple
ID password; this forces you to log out from all devices, and so iMessage will
at least error out for people who try and text you. But their devices will
never go back to normal texts unless they specifically force it too, and that
kind of lock-in is utter bullshit.

~~~
lostlogin
Nice fix. I hate changing this password as the everything needs updating.
Appletv, App Store (on 3 macs iphone and iPad) iTunes (2 macs iphone and iPad
for music) home sharing (on everything) iMessage (Mac and iphone), FaceTime
(Mac, iphone, iPad), developer portal (Mac), itunes connect (Mac), email (Mac,
iphone, iPad) and iCloud backups on everything. It is hellish and invariably
something is missed so the bugs aren't ironed out for weeks. Don't change your
passwords as Appleland becomes a dark and hellish place.

------
verelo
I had a friend who went through this same issue, for about a week i wondered
why he never replied to me, until we talked about it and i realized the
situation he was in. It's a terrible bug, apple seriously need to address
this.

I get why they wouldnt want to, but to me this is a shady as a broken
"Unsubscribe from this email" link.

------
Wintamute
Turning off iMessage on her iPhone, making sure any references to iMessage in
any device settings (including OSX) related only to an email address not a
cell number before moving to Android meant my girlfriend didn't experience any
issues. Not sure if that's a panacea and she was just lucky though ..

------
ahuibers
Changing my iTunes password worked for me.

------
ptlu
You can unlink your phone number from iMessages, and even deactivate iMessages
totally avoiding this problem...

~~~
lostlogin
He did this, I have done this. It doesn't work. He may have updated the blog
since you wrote this.

------
badusername
Had the same thing happen to me with a friend (me on iOS, him on iOS->Android)
- it seemed to me that the trick was to press 'Send as Text Message' when the
message fails to deliver. From then, it seems to work fine, as that probably
forces a check on the Apple ID validity.

------
sd8f9iu
I had the same issue, and after isolating the problem to iOS clients like the
author did, I had some success by having iMessage users remove and re-add me
as a contact. Obviously not a good general solution, but it's better than
having them delete every message chain.

------
SeoxyS
A fairly simple solution would be to get a Google Voice number, that would
forward to your real number - and have people text you via Google Voice.
However, if anybody calls (or sends an old-style SMS to) your old number, it
would still come through.

~~~
10feet
This is not a solution if you live outside of the USA.

------
itsdrewmiller
I'm having what I think is the same problem just from getting my broken iPhone
5 replaced with a new one. Same deal with tech support - very nice, but not
able to solve the problem. Sounds like a bug in iOS that could seriously stand
fixing.

------
donniefitz2
Same thing happened to me when I switched to Windows Phone. I didn't realize
it until my iPhone was long gone. I un-registered my iPhone on Apple's site
and about a month later, iPhone users could text me again.

------
patrickod
This is worrying as my Mum's iPhone just bit the dust and we replaced it with
an Android phone. I'm hoping that she doesn't experience the same issues with
her friends and family (many of whom use iPhones).

------
kbrower
I have the same issue. I called apple support and they simply could not help
me.

------
PhrosTT
When I upgraded to Android 4.3 I believe Google asked if I wanted to route my
messages through Hangouts (Google+). I assume this would send everything
through Gchat/Google+ wherever possible and skip SMS...

------
stevewillows
When I was on IOS I regularly turned off imessage and back on again to refresh
contacts. It's a pain in the ass, but it helped ease the pain of my friends
switching to android before I did.

------
ksaville00
I had this same issue, it was so bad I just went back to the iPhone.

------
martinald
This is the problem with bolting proprietary standards on top of legacy
methodology.

I do swear that iOS by default does send SMS after 5 minutes if it can't do it
over iMessage though?

~~~
lostlogin
Not always, even when 'send as SMS when iMessage is unavailable' is turned on.
Fixing iMessage issues is near impossible due to the complete absence of
useful settings.

------
monokrome
This isn't a bug. How do you expect it to work? It's probably not just
expected behavior, but an intentional form of vendor lock-in.

------
10feet
I noticed this over the last 2 weeks. I switched my mobile data off, and now I
don't get SMS from my friends until I return home.

Nice one Apple.

------
trichey
I had this happen to me, and I was only able to receive texts on my new S4
after disabling iMessage on my old iPhone and iPad.

------
linssen
I've got exactly the same problem here, has anyone found a solution (other
than not using iMessage in the first place)?

------
gatehouse
It probably costs like $5 to change your phone number. I think that's the best
option at this point.

~~~
q3k
And it possibly costs you new business cards, and having to let everyone know
that you have a new number, and changing any social profiles, etc.

...or Apple could stop making crappy software like this ;)

~~~
skolos
Unfortunately Apple has zero incentive to fix this bug. Why should they care
about customers they already lost?

~~~
jarcoal
I try and be very helpful to customers I'm losing... they might come back one
day or recommend someone to me.

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hakcermani
Yup, have been hit by this, but not as bad as I use both platforms. Glad you
wrote about it though.

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fredgrott
I have a question for mobile developers...

is Apple the only one making this mistake?

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Aloha
This is why you disable iMessage before turning your device in.

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lostlogin
Could you explain what you mean? I've been bit by this but have my old phone,
and the blog states that he turned iMessage off everywhere.

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wudf
Try switching back to iOS then forward to android again?

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hk__2
You should seriously improve your blog’s contrast, especially regarding small
text. The background is around #F5F1F8 while the text is #888588 (which is not
enough to meet WC3 recommendations).

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aichi
Time to switch your friends to WhatsApp

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justinzollars
Steve Jobs dies and everything goes to hell. Tim Cooks biggest innovation was
the Apple Dividend.

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shinratdr
Nevermind the fact that iMessage existed long before SJ passed on and that
this issue has been present since then. Just cut off those rough edges to cram
it into your narrative.

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dippyskoodlez
If message histories are your only copy of family/friends photos, you're doing
it wrong.

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skolos
This is a such wrong reply. The OP did not complain about his message history,
he was talking about message histories of all his friends and relatives. Do
you really think it could be socially acceptable to approach each of your
friends and relative and tell them: "If message histories are your only copy
of family/friends photos, you're doing it wrong." ?

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pmr_
I don't even think it is acceptable to approach each of your friends and
relatives and pester them with some technical issue that shouldn't exist in
the first place. The proposed fix just isn't a viable solution.

~~~
shinratdr
This is true, but on the flipside it's hardly Apple's fault if the only copy
they have of highly important and sentimental photos is a cached messaging
stream. There are countless ways to back up that data. It's like blaming
Microsoft because you didn't save transferred files during a Skype session.
Once they're on you're end, they're your problem. Apple's job is to send them
and make sure they arrive, that's it.

This bug sucks and Apple's solution isn't a good one, but that rebuttal is
equally weak. Use PhoneDisk, PhoneView or one of the other methods to pull a
text messaging history if it's that important to you and then blow it away.

