Re/code:
The Internet is filled with tales of frustration from those who have traded in their iPhone for an Android phone only to find their text messages trapped within Apple’s cloud. The issue arises when an iPhone customer trades in his or her phone for, say, an Android device, but keeps the same phone number that Apple’s messaging system recognizes as an iPhone.
iMessage is far from perfect but has gotten much better over the past year (at least from my experience). But that said, there is a point here.
Spurring this little number:
The iMessage problem is now the subject of legal action by a California woman seeking class-action status for a suit against Apple. She charges that Apple’s message-grabbing ways are depriving former customers of the ability to get full value from their wireless service after they give up their iPhone. The suit, filed last week, claims Apple’s actions violate California’s unfair competition law and also interfere with a wireless carrier’s abilities to deliver its promised service to consumers.
Which brings up an interesting point. What responsibility does a tech ecosystem bear to enable customers to easily leave that ecosystem? When an ecosystem is created, do the exit tools need to be created at the same time? Obviously, part of the value of an ecosystem, from a business point of view, is the friction that keeps customers on board. Clearly, there is a disincentive to making it easy for customers to leave.
As anyone who knows me will attest, I’m an unabashed Apple fan, have been since the Apple II days. Part of what makes me so loyal is Apple’s value of quality over strategy. I think Apple designs every product and service with the loftiest of functional and aesthetic goals. The “friction” problem becomes a “magnetic” solution. People stay because of attraction, not because of the difficulty of leaving.
There seems to be a friction problem here. My guess is, there’s a fix in the works.
This is different than leaving an ecosystem, like being able to export your mail. The phone number belongs to the user. If Apple continues to control access to the phone number, Apple could be found guilty of an illegal taking. It is their responsibility to free up the phone number for the user so that they may use it as they will.
Money grab for a minor problem
It’s interesting how polarizing these developments relating to Apple can be.
I immediately assume Apple is doing everything it possibly can to understand and fix a given issue. On the flip side, there are those who obviously view these technical issues as “lock-in” or otherwise subversive.
This has been a known problem for ages, and as someone who left iPhone about 18 months ago it really is a PITA.
What they should offer is a option on a website to “remove iMessage from all phone numbers”. That would solve it easily.
Instead I had to go to each device – 1 iPhone and 2 iPads and remove my phone number one by one. I also seem to remember that I had to first put the sim back into my iPhone to do this.. but I might be remembering this wrong.
You can disassociate your phone number from your iMessage through your Support Profile.
We are not talking about the phone numbers though?
Fantastic! I wish I knew this at the time.
Yes, the problem is if you move your phone number to a non Apple device, text messages from iMessage users disappear into iMessage oblivion rather than going to you. So your phone number is devalued.
I don’t think anyone but the craziest Apple haters suspect Apple did this on purpose. I do believe that Apple hasn’t done anything about it or has designated minimal resources because they don’t about people who leave the ecosystem. I would guess that it would take something like a lawsuit to make them care.
It’s sorta like how INS is a terrible experience and there’s no impetus to improve it because the people they serve are, for the most part, not citizens. And once those people do become citizens, they no longer deal with INS.
iMessage has always been bad. It’s gotten much worse for me since launch. I haven’t received messages for days sometimes, if at all. Many do not deliver and indicate they have. Some deliver but say they don’t. It’s entirely unreliable which isn’t acceptable when I use it for business. I would disable it but that causes even more problems. It’s like a virus that you can’t kill.
Apple need to throw as many resources as it takes to fix this mess.
I think if Apple designed iMessage “with the loftiest of functional and aesthetic goals” it would actually work properly, and they would have fixed bugs that have existed in it since it came to be in iOS 5. Not only has this problem existed for some time now Apple has known about it for almost nearly as long as it has been around and have done nothing to fix it. We shouldn’t be guessing whether there’s a fix in the works. We should be notified.
A tech company has the responsibility to allow customers to enter and leave the ecosystem at will and to allow those customers to easily import and export the data they own. This really should be enshrined in law.
They aren’t controlling the number in that same sense as say Verizon not allowing you to port out which is what the laws are about.
This is a glitch. The answer is likely one of two things.
“I would disable it but that causes even more problems” What other problems? Why not just use SMS?
The problems being described here. You can disable it but then messages never reach you, the whole reason for the lawsuit.
Thee customers told Apple to forward their mail. They did not tell Apple to stop forwarding. As far as I am concerned, they are suing because they can’t be bothered to understand the technology they own even on a cursory level.
I don’t think anyone but the craziest Apple haters suspect Apple did this on purpose.
Having been in the trenches in Usenet, I assure you that the people saying such a thing are the rank and file of technology commenters, and not crazies at all. Well, crazy in that they have an irrational dislike of Apple, but far from uncommon. Especially these last 10 years.
iMessage has always been bad.
iMessage has never been bad.
It’s gotten much worse for me since launch.
It has gotten even better since launch.
I haven’t received messages for days sometimes, if at all.
I have never not received a message aside from delays during an outage, which are less frequent that BBMs outages by comparison. My messages propagate across all my devices nearly instantaneously as I watch. All our techs use iMessage on a daily basis. The only unknown is quality of cell service.
Apple need to throw as many resources as it takes to fix this mess.
You need to switch providers.
You, as the customer, not unlinking your phone number from a service you set up in the first place isn’t a good basis for a lawsuit, but we are talking about the US.
I think the problem is that most users are not aware of iMessage. It defaults to on. Most of us pay no attention to the blue vs green bubbles. I owned Apple for over three years and never took notice. My extended family never did either.
Once I read the articles, and learned about iMessage, I made it go away. i deregistered my phone number. Will I miss messages? Maybe!
Apples policy of “Our devices are so user friendly the customer requres no owners manual.” Is partly to blame.
Some of us have a life other than our devices. I only discovered imessage recently, and i have been an Apple user for years. I have been working in IT for 18 years. I am a Linux admin and developer. I am not a luddite. The problem is so unique to Apple that nobody thought of it.
My iPad has no phone number. How do I make sure it is disassociated?
I have been woking in IT single 1996. I worked wih UNIX in the millitary before that. Today I am a Linux admin and developer. My iPhone was not my first experience with a smart phone. My iPad was not my first tablet.
If someone in my field was completely “blindsided” by iMessage, what hope does “John consumer” have? This iMessage thing harldy falls within Steve Jobs’ “intiitive” model.