iMessage vs Android

TidBITS Talk
1

Using iMessages from MacOS 14.3.1

Here’s this issue…
One member of a group uses Android. When I send iMessages to the group, they are converted to text messages. The Android user and one other iOS user receives the texts but another iOS/MacOS user does not get them. If I remove the Android user from the group everyone else gets iMessages. If I add the Android user back to the group the same iOS/MacOS user does not get the text messages. Anyone have any idea what’s going on here?

Thanks.

2

For the user who is not getting them, are you sending to an Apple ID email address or to a phone number? In order to get SMS/MMS, you must have a phone number and the iPhone has to be set to forward the messages (settings / messages / text message forwarding) to receive the messages from the iPhone (though it’s possible that using messages in iCloud on all devices would sync the mms group messages, I’m not 100% sure.)

You might all be better off switching the message app to something else like WhatsApp or Facebook Messages. Any media (photos and videos) sent via MMS are usually compressed, sometimes severely.

3

I would suggest switching to Signal for messaging if you have a non-Apple user in the group. Group SMS can fail too easily.

4

We are using a phone number for everyone in the group including the iOS user (iPhone) who is not getting the group texts. When I sent texts directly to that user using a non-AppleID email address instead of a phone number he received an email with a txt of the message attached. That is also very weird as we’re both on Apple devices.

Jack

5

I have seen that with an elderly neighbor who has a Verizon account for his cell phone. Apparently his Verizon service doesn’t do direct texting and instead converts it to an email with an attached .txt file.
I have to try to remember to use email with him, rather than texting if I want him to be able to easily respond.