Remember when we originally reported that Apple had finally admitted that people who had left iOS and iMessage for Android or Windows phone were experiencing issues with getting messages or sending messages? And that Apple had finally owned up to the fact that they were to blame for probably millions of missed phantom messages? Well, after owning up to the problem and realizing what the issue was, Apple has finally introduced a fix.
So, if you’ve left Apple and ditched iMessage for Android or Windows phone, but are having problems getting messages from friends you can now deregister your phone number from Apple’s iMessage database. The process to deregister your iMessage account from your phone number is a simple one. You simply head on over to Apple’s iMessage deregister site and do the following steps:
If you still have your iPhone, you can actually put your SIM card into your iPhone (before you sell it or give it away) and prevent this whole thing from even being a problem before it starts.
If you no longer have your iPhone, you can still deregister from Apple’s iMessage by entering your phone number into the field on the page and then getting a confirmation number from Apple via SMS (yes, Ironic) and using that confirmation number to deregister your phone number from Apple’s iMessage service. This should free 99% of people that were having problems with SMS after leaving Apple.
So, if you plan to ditch Apple, remember to deregister your phone number from iMessage and if you ever had an iPhone with iMessage, its probably a good idea to deregister as well. The real question will be whether Apple will be found liable for anti-competitive behavior as there have been rumors that this was an Apple problem for quite some time and it took the company at least a year or so to own up to it. In fact, many Apple users that left the company for another brand eventually came back due to the high volume of missing messages, not knowing that the reason was squarely because of Apple.
