Help Swap back and forth between iPhone and Android?

[djsams15]

Hello All! I'm new to these forums and new to Android. I'm currently using and iPhone 5s on Cricket. I picked up an almost new HTC Desire 626S (also Cricket) for cheap from a third party. My hope was to: 1) learn something about Android, and 2) possibly switch back and forth between them to get the real world Android experience. (I read where one user keeps both and simply switches the SIM card from iPhone to Android when he goes to the beach, etc. The theory being that he takes the less expensive Android in case of theft or damage from the environment.)

I've spent the past few weeks building my comfort level with the HTC on WiFi only. A week ago I swapped my SIM card from iPhone to HTC for about an hour. Tested with some phone calls to and from our land line. Exchanged a few text messages and calls to my wife's Windows phone (also Cricket) and my brother's Android phone. (Sprint) All worked and was very encouraging! (Note: No testing with iPhone users.)

Last week I stopped at our local Cricket store and asked if there would be any issues with swapping the SIM. She told me she could think of no reasons on the carrier's end and that if it worked, go for it. So, with the long holiday weekend, I decided to be an Android user for several days. The fun started Friday afternoon when I swapped the SIM card and tested things. Everything looked good. The fun ended Saturday afternoon when text messages with iPhone users were messed up beyond belief. Text to and from non-iPhones were fine, but texts from iPhones were a disaster. They sent fine, but replies actually came to my iPhone, which was sitting on my headboard with no SIM card. After trying a lot of stuff with the iPhone settings on both ends, I finally gave up and put my SIM back in the iPhone. The fun wasn't done yet. It took a half day to get messages working on my iPhone as normal between both my iPhone and Android contacts.

So, after some Googling, I found this article among others: http://www.businessinsider.com/fix-iphone-imessage-not-sending-texts-to-non-apple-phones-2014-5

To summarize, Apple says turn off iMessage and Facetime before taking the SIM card out of the iPhone. However, non-Apple articles like this also mention that your recipients may need to delete and re-add you to their contact list, or force messages as text after errors. And, the actual effects of shutting off iMessage and Facetime could take anywhere from a couple of hours to 45 days!

So.... I hadn't turned of iMessage and Facetime on my iPhone. I did later, but without the SIM card installed. When I reinstalled the SIM card and tried to get everything back to normal, my iMessages were sending from my email account. It took me several tests with multiple people to get my settings back to where everything worked.

The bottom line: Has anyone here found a relatively easy way to swap back and forth between an iPhone and an Android phone by swapping SIM card, yet not have to go through painful steps to make things work both back and forth?

Thanks!

Dan

PS: Why not just make the move to Android? For starters, the HTC specs are marginal at best. Also, my three adult daughters are all on iPhones and have made it clear they will not be switching anytime soon. I'm a computer professional and not afraid to do some tweaking, but I'd have to be able to arrive at a reasonable configuration where we can co-exist without ongoing struggles. That's why I was hoping to be able to test it out for a few days, or beyond, and make an informed decision.

 

[Hadron]

The problem here is simple: iMessage uses SMS when sending to other devices, but it a proprietary Internet messaging app when sending to iDevices. So when an iPhone user uses this app to send a message, the iPhone will look up the contact in Apple's database and use the Internet messaging bit of the app if it is there, falling back to standard sms if it is not. So there is no alternative to signing out if you swap between devices, since it's Apple's system rather than anything at your end that determines iMessage's behaviour. Well I say "no alternative", you could try to persuade all of your contacts to use something other than iMessage to message you, but the problems with that are obvious.

Indeed for several years Apple didn't provide a way of signing out other than from the device. This meant that people who switched system and sold their iPhone simply could not receive messages from iPhone users. Many assumed this was a problem with Android and switched back, which may explain why it took several years and a class action suit before Apple did anything about it (yes, they knew what the problem was) - it worked in their interest to allow the situation to persist.

(I'm not anti Apple, I use their computers, but I dislike any company allowing a problem to remain unfixed because it favours them over the customer if it isn't, so don't regard this as Apple's proudest moment).

 

[djsams15]

Thanks for the info Hadron.

So when an iPhone user switches permanently to Android, assuming he/she turns off iMessage and Facetime on the iPhone before shutting it down, does it really take hours, maybe even 45 days, before Apple drops the iMessage routing information? Even then, do all of the user's contacts that use an iPhone have to delete and re-add him/her on their iPhones before they can send and receive texts correctly?

I think I'd be marginally OK with this if Apple had responded to the complaints and sped up the removal. Ideally, if they dropped the iMessage routing immediately, I would be able to swap back and forth with little concern. I was hoping someone would step in and say "I'm doing this and it only takes 5 minutes to make the transition". Apparently no such luck.

I must admit, this experience has tilted me even more toward the Android just because Apple's behavior, as you say, favors the company over the customer. Not cool.

Dan

 

[Hadron]

No, it should not take 45 days, and usually the other contacts should not need to take any action. But I'm not in a position to say how long it might take: one person I know who did this found it only took a few minutes, but as that's just one sample I can't say whether that's typical or what the longest it might take really is.

It is now possible to deregister a phone number from iMessage without using the iPhone itself. Apple's solution to the problem above was to provide a web form for doing this. But as you still have the iPhone that shouldn't be needed.