If you received a new smartphone for Christmas, we hope that by now you have successfully transferred or resynchronised your contacts and diary information to the new device, as well as re-establishing any links to cloud data services like Drop Box and OneDrive.
But if you moved away from an iPhone in favour of an Android device, did you also remember to de-register your phone number from Apple’s iMessage service before you upgraded?
Are people finding it hard to send you an SMS?
Many people fail to perform this simple task and are subsequently frustrated by an inability to receive text messages from their friends who are still using Apple devices. Legal action has even been brought against Apple with one user in the US recently claiming that the company’s iMessage system was illegally intercepting and failing to deliver text messages to Android phones (a Federal judge dismissed the suit).
So if you have stopped receiving texts from your friends since switching handsets, it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t love you anymore. The problem is that whilst your number is still registered with Apple’s iMessage service, an iPhone will always attempt to deliver a text message to you via Apple’s own servers.
Here is what you can do about it
The solution is simply to tell Apple that you have moved on. The recommended way to do this was traditionally to disable iMessage on an iPhone before switching your SIM card to an Android phone (who knew?), alternatively you could brave the Apple call centre and ask somebody to do this for you over the phone.
Today there is also another much simpler way to deregister. Simply visit Apple’s ‘Deregister iMessage’ website and enter your phone number. You will receive a 6-digit code via SMS which you can then enter into the site in order to complete the process.
To deregister from iMessage, click here: https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage
