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Apple has finally admitted that they are to blame for the constant issues that iMessage (iOS) users are having with communicating with anyone outside of iMessage with some SMS messages simply never getting delivered. This has been a fairly well-known issue and many people suspected that it was actually happening and then it was finally confirmed that Apple has acknowledged the issue and is working on a fix. iMessage has been around for a solid 3 years now and ever since it was launched with iOS 5 users have been experiencing issues with undelivered messages, this includes text and multimedia messages being sent to a non-iOS device.
The problem occurs whenever someone tries to switch from an iPhone to any other device but keeps the same number, Apple’s servers effectively continue to try to deliver the messages to that person’s iMessage account instead of sending it as an SMS outward. As a result, many users have thought and blamed Android phones for this problem, and I have actually seen it first hand and a few people even ended up switching back to Apple’s iPhone because of how awful the problem was. It also doesn’t help to have other iOS devices on iMessage even though you’ve switched your primary phone to something else. I don’t know if this is a bit of poor programming on Apple’s part or an intentional goal to make switching incredibly frustrating. I have a feeling that the truth is somewhere in the middle.
Apple doesn’t really benefit from fixing this problem, in fact they benefit from not fixing it since they increase their already firm grip on users that wish to switch. The experience of switching from iOS to Android is incredibly frustrating and Apple’s closed systems result in making the switch incredibly painful and anything but frictionless. As a result many users never try to make the switch or try and then come back because of the friction they experience. But the good thing is that Apple is supposedly working on making a fix now and should resolve this issue that has caused so many users major headaches.
