iMessage and SMS

Its hard to believe that moving from one phone to another would be complicated in today's day and age. More and more people are finding that moving from iPhone to Android is getting to be a problem. The reason? iMessage. When the move to Android the iMessage server seems to have them still registered. So when a friend or family member who has an iPhone messages them, the iPhone registers it as an iMessage because the server tells it to.

Keep in mind this does not happen all the time.

So how do you fix this?

There are several options but it starts and stays with the person who is leaving the iPhone.

If you are trading in your iPhone BEFORE you trade it in do the following:

Go to Settings

Go to Messages:

Go to Send & Receive:

Deselect anything that has your cell phone number in it:

Once you have done that and you receive an email stating that your number has been removed from iMessage turn iMessage off on the phone. This email comes pretty quickly.

If you still have the original iPhone do the above steps first.

If that doesn't work and resolve the issue the next step is to go to https://supportprofile.apple.com/homePage 

Find your device: 

Select the device by clicking the circle in the right hand corner:

Select Unregister and then select Unregister again: 

Follow the confirmation prompts: 

This process can take anywhere from 24-48 hours for the server to update. If you are still having issues contact Apple however please keep in mind it can take 90 days for the server to update.