If you're thinking of buying an iPhone, here's a compelling reason not to. If you switch from an iphone to another kind of phone, apple will block all iphones from sending you text messages. This is similar to how Islam and other religions treat apostasy: with harsh penalties ranging from excommunication to death. Apple is the Saudi Arabia of tech companies.
The story:
I bought an iPhone early last year, but after it constantly did its best to enrage me at every opportunity, I switched to a non-i phone. After I switched, I eventually was fortunate enough to discover that apple was blocking text messages from other iphone users to my phone number, without notifying them or me. Many messages are still being blocked, months later, even after I called apple and asked them to fix it.
Here's how the "bug" works (they claim it's a bug although it's obviously intentional): When you open a new text message conversation on your iphone, iMessage checks its database to see whether the recipient is an iphone, and therefore eligible to receive an iMessage. To save money, apple cuts corners and sends an iMessage instead of an actual sms, which uses a different cellular network. If the iphone routes the message through iMessage, but the recipient doesn't use an iphone any more, then iMessage just gives up. But it doesn't tell the sender or recipient that there was an error. It tells the sender that their message was successfully sent, but does not actually send the message.
So if someone had sent me a message like this one: "Hey Forrest. I'm going through a rough time and I really need someone to talk to. Please give me a call" then I wouldn't have received it, but they would be told I received it, and they would assume I don't care enough to respond. If someone had sent me a message like this one: "Hey Forrest, your mom is in the hospital. Please come quickly" I wouldn't have received it.
When you switch from an iphone, apple assumes that someone will somehow tell iMessage that your phone number should be taken off the list - but they don't do it themselves! Their plan is to wait until you somehow figure out that that your personal communications are being blocked, search the internet for a bunch of possible solutions, and then finally discover the little known secret of deregistering your phone number from iMessage. But until recently there was no way to do this, so every message from an iphone to a previously-iphone number was just blocked. Apple received so many complaints about this issue that they finally made a website to deregister your phone number from iMessage. But there's a massive flaw in their "fix". If someone with an iphone has a conversation already open with you, it won't check again with iMessage whether the phone number is registered, so any new messages within that conversation will still not actually be sent to you. After struggling for an hour with apple tech support, I discovered that the only way to fix this is to call all of your friends and family, and tell them to delete all of their conversations with you. I hope if you do that, you'll also tell them how vindictive, greedy, and incompetent apple is, and urge them never to purchase an apple product or service again. Presumably a cackling undead Steve Jobs collects all the phone numbers that people submit on that website to sell to telemarketers, spammers, and al-Qaeda
I'm not an apple customer but I spent an hour today trying - and failing - to get apple to stop blocking personal text messages that my friends and family send me. Apple has programmed all its iphones to shun any apostates who leave the cult of iPhone.
[Update 1/12/2015] One day after I called and asked them to fix it, the "genius" at apple confirmed that there's nothing they can do. He repeated that the only way they could come up with to fix this problem is to call all of my friends, family, and coworkers, and tell them toditch their iphones delete their conversations with me. To be clear, apple is intercepting and blocking personal text messages, and has refused to stop.
The story:
I bought an iPhone early last year, but after it constantly did its best to enrage me at every opportunity, I switched to a non-i phone. After I switched, I eventually was fortunate enough to discover that apple was blocking text messages from other iphone users to my phone number, without notifying them or me. Many messages are still being blocked, months later, even after I called apple and asked them to fix it.
So if someone had sent me a message like this one: "Hey Forrest. I'm going through a rough time and I really need someone to talk to. Please give me a call" then I wouldn't have received it, but they would be told I received it, and they would assume I don't care enough to respond. If someone had sent me a message like this one: "Hey Forrest, your mom is in the hospital. Please come quickly" I wouldn't have received it.
When you switch from an iphone, apple assumes that someone will somehow tell iMessage that your phone number should be taken off the list - but they don't do it themselves! Their plan is to wait until you somehow figure out that that your personal communications are being blocked, search the internet for a bunch of possible solutions, and then finally discover the little known secret of deregistering your phone number from iMessage. But until recently there was no way to do this, so every message from an iphone to a previously-iphone number was just blocked. Apple received so many complaints about this issue that they finally made a website to deregister your phone number from iMessage. But there's a massive flaw in their "fix". If someone with an iphone has a conversation already open with you, it won't check again with iMessage whether the phone number is registered, so any new messages within that conversation will still not actually be sent to you. After struggling for an hour with apple tech support, I discovered that the only way to fix this is to call all of your friends and family, and tell them to delete all of their conversations with you. I hope if you do that, you'll also tell them how vindictive, greedy, and incompetent apple is, and urge them never to purchase an apple product or service again. Presumably a cackling undead Steve Jobs collects all the phone numbers that people submit on that website to sell to telemarketers, spammers, and al-Qaeda
I'm not an apple customer but I spent an hour today trying - and failing - to get apple to stop blocking personal text messages that my friends and family send me. Apple has programmed all its iphones to shun any apostates who leave the cult of iPhone.
[Update 1/12/2015] One day after I called and asked them to fix it, the "genius" at apple confirmed that there's nothing they can do. He repeated that the only way they could come up with to fix this problem is to call all of my friends, family, and coworkers, and tell them to
