How-To:Switching from iOS and ditching imessage.

zhelf

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Are you switching from iOS to android or any other OS and having issue with iMessage? here is the fix.

Ok so i switch between iOS and android regularly and usually it is no problem with imessage but this last time was exceedingly difficult.

The obvious is to before you deactivate your iphone go into settings->messages and turn off iMessage. After this is off power cycle the phone so it forces it to reset and reconnect to the network.
For some people this fix will be all you need and your messages will just go through as SMS, but not for everyone. One fix i read a lot on apple support boards and around here is to just have people delete your contact....Yea that is a major hassle reaching out to everyone you know with an iPhone and saying hey delete my contact and remake it please. That was a no go for me i even tried it and it did not work anyway. I heard some say to just give it time, tried that waited a week, still was not receiving a lot of messages and people reported it was still trying to go through as imessage.

What i found that worked and worked flawlessly because i tried it twice just to test it and because i like to switch often.

So here is what you do.

1.Turn off iMessage
2.Power Cycle your phone.
3. Call 1-800-MY-APPLE (1-800-692-7753)
4.Request Technical support for iphone (sometimes you can say imessage it recognized it once for me but not again)
5. Tell the tech you want to de-register your phone number with iMessage (be insistent as they try to keep you just say you have tried everything else and you need your phone number to be de registered.)
6.Shut the phone off give it 1 minute and then turn it back on once it powers back up you are free to switch to android or windows phone and will get your messages.

The first few messages will take a little longer to come through for a day then it should be good. I have seen this method posted before online but most i read say to just deregister online and turn it off but i have found that does not always work. This is the certain way to remove your phone number from the servers i hope this helps someone.
 

zhelf

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Nov 6, 2009
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ya know i thought i read an article but i could find the iMore article when i was searching thank you. I used to be able to just shut off imessage and it would work. Just wanted to spread the word to fellow android users as i recently struggled with this for 2 weeks and almost considered jsut staying with iOS from the headache of not getting messages
 

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