[Android Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sweendiggler:
Good Morning,

I recently switched to a Samsung Galaxy phone after a string of recent frustrations with my iPhone 6. I followed all of Apple's instructions over a week before I switched phones, including signing out of iMessage, FaceTime, etc. and de-registering iMessage on the support site. iPhone users can now send me individual SMS messages without issue, but I cannot group message with iPhone users, as iMessage hijacks the thread and I never see any messages but my own. This is a huge problem for me as we use group texts extensively at work. I opened a bug report with the following text:

Summary: After switching to an Android device and properly following Apple's instructions to de-register from iMessage and FaceTime, I am still unable to receive group messages from iPhone users. They will receive my messages as MMS group texts, but their returns are sent as iMessage and I (obviously) never receive them. This has been an issue for years but apparently still has not been resolved. This is a huge issue for anyone who switches between multiple devices.

Steps to Reproduce:

1) Have an iPhone on a cell line with iMessage turned on.

2) De-register from iMessage and FaceTime, then swap your SIM into an Android phone 24 hours or more later.

3) Send a group message to some iPhone users.

4) They will receive your messages as SMS/MMS but their returns will be sent as iMessage and thus lost.

Expected Results: iOS devices should recognize that the device they are replying to is not iMessage-capable and default back to SMS/MMS as intended.

Actual Results: Complete fail, with iMessages lost into the ether and communications halted.

Version: 9.2 / 13C75

Notes:

Configuration:

IOS9 iPhone switched to Samsung Galaxy S6 after following Apple's recommended steps to unregister from iMessage. Also reproducible by simply turning off iMessage and trying to utilize traditional group texting on an iPhone with iOS 9.

​

This is the response I got:

Apple Developer Relations21-Dec-2015 10:17 AM

Engineering has provided the following information regarding this issue: This is correct. The group, if it's only ever iMessage, will not downgrade to MMS. If you had at some point in the past sent an MMS to this group then we’d allow downgrading of the group. Basically if you deregister iMessage in an iMessage only group we won’t downgrade the conversation to a weaker technology.​

I can't imagine that their engineering strategy is to permanently hijack group messaging ability for users, so I sent the following response:

Well Apple can't permanently hijack my ability to group message with iPhone users - there has to be a method to resolve this. How am I to go about group messaging with iPhone owners who use iMessage? Deleting and re-creating these threads does not work for the iPhone users, even those who can message me directly, as the new thread converts to iMessage and I am again cut out of the conversation. I can't imagine that Apple's engineering strategy is to break messaging ability for any user who switches off of the platform.​

My question to you all is this: has anyone been able to fix this problem and resume group messaging with iPhone users via MMS rather than iMessage after switching? The response from engineering seems like it would be incorrect (and it also seems like it would be somehow illegal/unethical to permanently hijack someone's number if it were in fact true).

Any help that you can provide would be fantastic.

Thanks!