It isn’t, though. Group MMSes are notoriously fickle, and doing something like sending a video to the group without it appearing in potato quality feels all but impossible at times. iMessage simply is better for group messaging.

The fact that SMS group messages suck isn't something that Apple can really fix without an oob protocol which would basically be iMessage again.

They could open up iMessage, which they originally said they were going to do, then stopped talking about it entirely. Even if they didn’t want to open it up they could make an iMessage Android app, like their Apple Music app.

When did Apple say they were going to open iMessage? I do recall Steve Jobs saying this about Facetime [1] during its announcement, and that a) it was a surprise to the team building it, and b) was abandoned when Apple was sued for patent infringement by patent troll VirnetX [2], causing them to change the protocol from peer-to-peer to server-based.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/1xuzif/what_ever_hap... [2]: https://www.engadget.com/2017/10/16/apple-faces-440-million-...

Feel free to thanks VirnetX about that... https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/10/17222380/apple-virtnetx-p...

It tough to blame Apple for not open-sourcing a protocol they are sued about by a patent troll. Until resolved properly this would be a toxic code-base anyway.

Of course they could restart from scratch, but I guess they have no incentive to make efforts about that. What will be meaningful however is be what they'll do after patent exhaustion date of infringed VirnetX "patents".

Apple just finished closing down (pretty sure) all their stores in the East District of TX so all these suits can no longer be filed there. Might help conclude a bunch of these...or not...it's a ton of money we're talking about.

They were going to open FaceTime, not iMessage.

I deregistered my number and I still have messages that are delivered to my iPad instead of my android phone. If it wasn’t for that iPad next to my bed, I would have lost contact with some people entirely.

What Apple’s doing should be fucking prosecuted by the FCC or FTC. It’s outrageous.

I suspect those messages mighty be using e-mail rather than phone number as the identifier.

So what, if iMessage is the default SMS app and it sends to an unregistered iCloud account, it should either translate to SMS or give an error.

The last thing it should do is silently send a message to an inactive account such that it looks like I ghosted the person.

The process deregisters the phone number from the account; it does not shut down the entire iCloud account or disable iMessage entirely.

"iMessages" sent to your phone number will be translated to SMS.

iMessages sent to your email address will still be delivered to the account associated with that email address. They can be accessed on pretty much any modern apple device associated with that account.

It's rare that people intentionally iMessage an email address, but the interface is opaque enough that it's essentially impossible on an existing text chain to tell that you did (unless you're specifically looking for that information).

The behavior as implemented makes sense provided that every user made an intentional and informed choice when choosing to message a friend via phone number or email. That is, of course, not the case (and is not helped by Siri sometimes silently deciding to use a contact's email over their phone number).

It is not an unregistered account if it is being received on an iPad.

Further, if you are not logged in with the account on at least one device, it will not show as delivered.

iPads don't have phone numbers so the person sending you the message is sending it to an Apple ID, not a phone number. This is working exactly the way it's supposed to.

No, it's really not. If I unregister from iMessage the last thing that should happen is my Apple ID swallowing messages from people's iPhones.

Return an error or redirect to SMS, it's not that fucking hard.

The one thing you are right about is that it's an intentional dark pattern on Apple's part to obsfucate Apple IDs and phone numbers. It's an illegal anticompetitve strategy.

No, you're misunderstanding what's happening. If you unregister your phone number from iMessage, then that's the end of it. People sending messages to your phone number will get SMS messages. It is impossible for a de-registered phone number to receive iMessages on an iPad. What's actually happening is that the people who are sending you messages are sending them to your Apple ID instead and iMessage is always registered to an Apple ID so the messages are delivered to your iPad. It's not swallowing anyone's messages from people's iPhones because that's literally not possible.

It's not a dark pattern. It's not an illegal anti-competitive strategy. It's a successful delivery of a message to the recipient address it was sent to that you're simply misunderstanding.

I'm not misunderstanding anything. I want to opt out of iMessage being bound to my Apple ID.

I don't give a shit what address or phone number people think they're sending to, when they see my name on their iPhone, it's the wrong address.

The only reason my iPad even has iMessage installed is because people were sending me messages that got disappeared by Apple's abysmal policy.

Why is this so hard for you to understand?

Apple is the richest company in the world but for some reason their process for delisting your Apple ID from iMessage is a huge fucking joke.

There's no way this is not an intentional decision on their part.

Yes, you are misunderstanding. I don't see how that's not obvious to you. iMessage is tied to an Apple ID. Unregistering your phone number from that Apple ID doesn't turn iMessage off. The fact that you think it does is where you misunderstand. The only way to turn off iMessage from an Apple ID is to turn off iMessage for the devices that are set up to receive those messages.

It's literally impossible to send an SMS message to someone's Apple ID and it's not possible to send an iMessage to a phone number that's been unregistered from iMessage. Just because you don't understand how it works doesn't mean Apple is at fault. You cannot delist an Apple ID from iMessage, you can only sign out of iMessage on a receiving device. That's it. Anything else above that is your fault.

If you don't want to receive iMessages at all and don't want people sending them to you, sign out of iMessage. It's not that hard.

What happens if you go to Settings > Messages > Send & Receive, tap on your Apple ID and sign out of the iMessage account for your Apple ID?