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July 24, 2018 4 mins
From the mailbag: Faby writes in and says she switched from an iPhone to a Samsung Galaxy S9+ and now her text messages aren't coming through. Here's the fix.Deregister and Turn off iMessage:https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessageEmail me a Question:http://richontech.tv/contactFollow Rich on Social Media:Facebook: http://facebook.com/RichOnTechTwitter: http://twitter.com/richdemuroInstagram: http://instagram.com/richontechEasy ways to listen on your phone or smart speaker:"Hey Google, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Hey Siri, Play the Rich on Tech Podcast""Alexa, Enable the Rich on Tech Flash Briefing"

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Getting your texts when you switch from iPhone to Android.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
What's going on? I'm Rich Dmiro, this is Rich on tech.
You know.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
I get a lot of emails from you guys. Thanks
for trusting me to answer them, which I do as
much as possible. It might take me a little bit
to write you back sometimes really all depends on my schedule,
but I do try to respond. So I figured it
in today's podcast. Let's open up the mailbag and answer
a question. This is a common one, so I think
it's a good thing to know about, Faby wrote in
thanks for keeping us informed with all the tech around us.

(00:33):
I recently switched from an iPhone six plus to a
Samsung nine plus.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
But the problem is that.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
My iPhone receives messages from friends that have iPhones, but
the messages don't go through the s nine plus. My
kid only uses the iPhone through Wi Fi in the house.
What can I do to fix the problem. This is
a great question, Faby, and it happens to a lot
of people. It used to be a lot worse, but
now it's getting a little bit better since Apple has
changed some things. But what's happening basically is that I

(01:02):
message is still handling your text.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Messages even though you switch to a new phone.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
It's a very common issue when you switch from iPhone
to Android.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
Let me explain.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
So, when you set up an iPhone, there's a message
that asks if you want to activate I Message. This
is Apple's proprietary text messaging program. It looks like a text,
but it's really being sent through Apple servers, and you
get some benefits because of that when you do this.
When you turn on this feature, Apple basically turns your
phone number into an I Message ID, kind of like

(01:31):
think about it a username on any other service, except
in this case, it's literally using your phone number. Then,
when you go to text someone, if Apple notices that
that person is also using I Message, it will route
your text message through their own messaging system and not
the carriers. So it's actually Apple delivering your message. And
all this is happening in a pretty invisible way to you,
the end user. Your only indication that this is all

(01:53):
going on is that I messages are shown in blue,
and regular old fashioned SMS or text messages are shown
in green. Perhaps that's a nod to Android's green color.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
I messages look and act like text messages, but they
also have kind of some superpowers, like you can send
full resolution photos, big videos.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
You can see when someone's looked at your message or
when they're typing a reply. People love this.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
It's one of the top features on the iPhone. It's
something that Apple created and it's pretty brilliant and it
works pretty well until you switch to an Android. Apple
doesn't necessarily know that your phone number has left their
system now. Since your number is still linked to an
I Message account, iPhones and other devices basically are still
trying to route your text through I Message. This means

(02:35):
that you might still see your I messages on another
Apple device, like a maccomputer or an iPad, even though
your phone isn't getting them your new phone that is
the S nine. What you need to do is deactivate
or de register your phone number from I Message.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
You can do this in two different ways.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
You can go into your iPhone before you swap it
out for an Android, then go into messages and turn
off the toggle for I Message. This will tell Apple
that you don't want to get your messages through I
Message anymore. You also need to do the same for
FaceTime if you've already wiped your phone or you don't
have it, or you've gotten rid of it. You can
then use a special website that Apple's set up to
help you do this if you don't have your phone.

(03:13):
It's called deregister I Message, and you can find a
link to it in the show notes. Or you can
go to self solve dot Apple dot com slash deregister
dash I message. I know that's a handful, but once
you go to this website, you pop in your phone number.
Apple will send you a text to confirm that you
still own the number.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
They don't want you doing this for your friends.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Then I message will be deactivated. Now, keep in mind
it can take up to twenty four hours for all
of this to actually kick in. That means for your
phone number deactivation to sort of propagate through Apple systems.
In that time, friends might still not be able to
send you text messages. Now, this used to be a
lot worse, this kind of problem, but it's gotten a
lot better in recent years.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
I think Apple's kind of gotten hip to this.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
If things aren't working after a long time and your
friends still can't get their messages through to you texting
from iPhones, that is, you can tell them to delete
your entire previous message conversation and start over from scratch.
Usually deleting that then making a new text message with
your phone number to the Android phone will definitely work.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
They're gonna lose.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
Your entire message history together, but that usually fixes the
problem as a last resort. So there's the long short
answer to your question. Fabi, Thanks so much for writing in,
and I think it helped a lot of people because
this happens a lot. I get this question very often.
If you have a question for me, just go to
my website to ask Rich on tech dot, TV, slash contact,
and as always I will do my best to respond.

(04:35):
Thanks so much for listening. I'm Rich Damiro I'll talk
to you real soon.
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Rich DeMuro

Rich DeMuro

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