In an effort to offer support to those who have taken the decision to move to a different mobile platform, Apple has built and released a ‘Deregister iMessage’ Web service that allows individual phone numbers to be completely removed from the iMessage messaging platform.
The need for this official Web-based service has arisen from a significant number of historical iPhone users reporting that they don’t seem to be receiving certain text messages that have been sent from a current iPhone owner. When an individual moves from using an iPhone on iOS to a different platform, like Android or Windows Phone, the phone number that was used with the iPhone can still be linked to the iMessage platform, with Apple treating outgoing messages from the sender in a different way than if it was being delivered through the mobile network. This has led to a large number of texts just never being received.
Of course, one solution to that problem is to manually deactivate iMessage from the Settings app of the iPhone prior to selling it, or moving to a new platform, by heading to Settings > Messages and turning iMessage off. However, if that procedure wasn’t followed through when the decision to migrate away from iPhone was made, then Apple now has an official Web tool to rectify the problem. Users are simply invited to visit the new Deregister iMessage page and enter the phone number that is still associated with the iMessage service. Apple will then send a confirmation text message to that number containing a unique security code.
When the confirmation code has been received it’s as easy as entering it into the confirmation box on the Web page and hitting the ‘Submit’ option. In addition to the relatively simple tool, Apple has also provided direct links to a support article which answers a few questions pertaining to why it’s actually necessary to deregister a phone number from the iMessage service if you are planning on moving to a different mobile platform.
The complete support article from Apple’s website is as follows, outlining why you should deregister iMessage, and how to disable the service if you already have your iPhone in hand:
You can check out Apple’s official ‘Deregister iMessage’ page by going here.
You can follow us on Twitter, add us to your circle on Google+ or like our Facebook page to keep yourself updated on all the latest from Microsoft, Google, Apple and the web.