Will Apple Ever Fix the iMessage Text-Killing Problem?
When Liz DeStasio's smartphone abruptly stopped getting her parents' text messages, she chalked it up to old-person syndrome — that they had simply screwed up a setting that was preventing the texts from getting through. But the missing-text problem began spreading to more of her contacts, perplexing both her and her husband, Dominick.

Soon, they found the common thread: All of the people whose texts weren't getting through were iPhone owners.

"It was actually her father who noticed that whenever he sent a message, it was showing up as if it were sent under iMessage," says Dominick. "Once he mentioned the iMessage thing, I put two and two together that all the people that were having trouble messaging her had iPhones."

It quickly became obvious that Liz had been affected by a known problem with iMessage: That is, if someone switches from an iPhone to a non-Apple phone and neglects to turn off the service — which routes text messages through Apple's servers instead of the carrier's SMS network — then that person will no longer get texts from other iPhones.

What's happening is, on the back end, Apple still thinks the person's phone is an iPhone. Thus those texts have nowhere to go when they hit the phone number associated with the iMessage account, since the service isn't available on other phones. The problem has cropped up time and again, affecting many people who have switched from an iPhone to another platform.

There was just one thing wrong with that theory, though: Liz DeStasio never owned an iPhone.

Liz had just switched phones, upgrading to a Samsung Galaxy S4 from a dying Droid Bionic — both Android phones — getting a new phone number in the process. She and her family had just moved back to Pittsburgh from Las Vegas, so she felt her phone swap was a good time to ditch the 702 area code as well.

The new number was Dominick's first clue in finding out exactly what was happening to his wife's missing texts. In his investigation, Dominick leveraged his expertise as a software engineer. He experimented with different kinds of texts from different people and confirmed it only affected messages from iPhones.

Dominick got on the phone with a support person from Verizon. The initial person wasn't very helpful, so he needed to go up a couple of levels to find someone who could help. One supervisor said they'd perform a back-end fix, which did nothing.

Finally, he got a Verizon network engineer on the line. As they were speaking, it dawned on him that the previous owner of his wife's phone number was a (former) iPhone owner, and hadn't deactivated iMessage.

Although the engineer couldn't confirm that was the case, he said it was a very plausible theory. However, Verizon couldn't do anything about it, since iMessage is managed by Apple. The engineer told him that if Dominick or someone at Verizon called Apple and asked for iMessage to be turned off on a specific phone number, the chances of Apple doing so were extremely low.

Dominick agreed, since he previously had unhelpful experiences with Apple's tech support, so instead he decided it would be easier for everyone if his wife just switched her phone number again. As soon as she did so, she began receiving texts again. Dominick related the whole saga on his blog.

"The network engineer and I, what we agreed to was, 'She's only had this number for a day — let's try a different number,'" says Dominick. "As soon as we changed the number, it all started working."

Based on experiences others have had with this iMessage problem, Dominick made the right decision in not bothering to contact Apple. When Mashable contacted the company about the problem, Apple wouldn't comment, and its tech support staff appears inconsistent when it comes to recommending fixes for this problem.

The standard response seems to be recommending a user simply deactivate iMessage on their old phone. If that's not possible (as was the case with Liz DeStasio), then the company recommends the user wait out the 30 days it takes for the iMessage servers to reset the account (which apparently happens if the user's phone number hasn't been active on the system for that long).

That's a problem if you never actually owned the iPhone. It's also a problem if your iPhone has been destroyed or rendered inoperable because of damage, which happened to Bill McBain. McBain accidentally went swimming with his iPhone 4S still in his pocket in July. When he came out of the water, he found the iPhone to be completely dead.

McBain had been meaning to switch phones anyway, so when he got a new phone he opted for a Samsung Galaxy S4. But within a couple of days, he began to notice he wasn't getting texts from other iPhones. He instantly realized the problem was with iMessage, but since his old phone wasn't working at all, he couldn't turn it on to deactivate the service.

When McBain contacted Apple, the only fix they recommended was to turn off iMessage through his old phone. When the support person told him that was his only option, he requested to speak to a supervisor. The supervisor gave him only three options: Turn off iMessage on the old phone, borrow a friend's iPhone and use his new SIM card to turn off iMessage, or wait 30 days (an excerpt from the transcript is below).

"Apple has got to have some internal way of changing this info sooner and it was pretty frustrating that they offered no workaround," McBain told Mashable via email. "Since this time I've also had a couple coworkers talk about friends they knew that encountered the same issue."

There are actually a few other possible fixes Apple could have recommended. A user can go to the not-widely known Apple profile page, which lists all the Apple devices a user has registered. From there, the user can de-register the iPhone, which sometimes fixes the issue, even though registration generally only applies to warranties and support, not services. Nonetheless, many posts in support forums and even some wireless carriers recommend this solution.

If de-registering the device doesn't work, the user can change their Apple password, which requires all devices associated with that Apple ID to re-establish contact with Apple's servers. When that happens, the iMessage server should no longer see the person's new (non-Apple) phone as an iPhone. However, if the user has associated iMessage with only a phone number and not an Apple ID, this probably won't work.

Finally, the user can use Find My iPhone via iCloud.com to wipe the phone. Even if the phone is destroyed, wiping the phone tells Apple's servers to sever the iMessage connection — but again, only if the user has associated iMessage with the Apple ID (which it may not be, if it's tied only to the phone number).

However, McBain says he tried all of those solutions, and none of them worked. Eventually, 21 days after he de-registered his phone, McBain got an automated email from Apple informing him that is iMessage profile had been modified, and he began receiving texts from iPhones again.

The iMessage issue is also plaguing Jenny Liu, a colleague of Dominick DeStasio. When Liu switched from an iPhone 4 to a Galaxy S4 she experienced the same problem of missing texts from iPhones. She says she has tried both de-registering the device and changing her password, but she is still unable to receive the texts.

Most likely, Liu and McBain had iMessage associated only with a phone number and not an Apple ID. In those cases, there appears to be no quick fix — not even on Apple's end.

Unlike other messaging platforms such as Viber, WhatsApp and BlackBerry Messenger, iMessage intersects directly with SMS. Apple combines the two services in the same app, ostensibly for user convenience. However, it's also the main reason this problem continues to arise.

"Many [messaging] services today latch onto a phone number, which is commonly understood, but it leads to these types of collisions," says Andrew Bocking, head of BlackBerry Messenger for BlackBerry. "We've always focused on the PIN number — it really provided a unique identifier that's separate from what would be a traditional phone identifier. Because of that, obviously, it avoids this issue."

Since iMessage is tied to a user's phone number and affects SMS, wireless carriers have a stake in fixing it. However, all of the major carriers declined to comment for this story — understandable considering Apple is an important partner for them. However, a trusted source says at least one carrier has approached Apple about the issue, but addressing it requires constant management (i.e. money), and Apple has shown no interest in funding such an effort.

Whether or not the company wants to work with carriers on recycled phone numbers, it's unclear why Apple isn't able to let users de-activate iMessage either via the web or a service call, as opposed to forcing them to wait weeks for the problem to fix itself.

"I think weird is the right word for that," says Bocking. "I remember this coming up a year and a half ago, and I thought they would have handled it beyond some 30-day timer. Generally speaking, I'm sure it could be handled better."

iMessage first came online in late 2011. Looking at forums since that time, the problem has come up repeatedly, and it doesn't appear Apple has addressed it outside of a cursory troubleshooting page. The lack of attention could be a simple oversight, and the reason it's not high on Apple's priority list appears obvious, at least to Dominick.

"I can see the response, 'If you had an iPhone, you wouldn't have that problem,'" says Dominick. "I just think it's a very poor implementation, and there's no connection between the carriers. When a number goes back in a pool, there needs to be some kind of an API where they can de-register that number from iMessage, and that obviously isn't there."

The smartphone market is still growing. With Android market share growing faster than Apple's in many parts of the world, it stands to reason a larger number of people will switch from away from iOS as time goes on. And as they do a small but increasing number of people will lose the ability to receive texts from many people.

"A lot of those new Android owners are likely former iPhone users, and if they are switching because their phone is inoperable Apple continues to hold their texts hostage," says McBain. "I feel like the sign of a good company is letting you leave if you want."

The iPhone 5C could exacerbate the problem. The iPhone 5C is a lower-cost model that appears to be aimed at developing markets — places where pre-paid plans, multiple SIM cards and constantly changing phone numbers are more common, if not the norm. However, if switching phone numbers can lead to a 30-day blackout on texts from other iPhones, the iMessage problem could affect even more people in those markets, even among those who never owned an iPhone.

Apple is a company that prides itself on providing an excellent customer experience, but that consideration doesn't appear to extend to former customers. iMessage has the potential to make their communication inconsistent once they leave iOS, but the message from Apple is clear: You're on your own.
What was this article about?
Apple makes free texting convenient by bundling its own iMessage system with SMS. But there's a dark side.