Apple Sued for Not Delivering Texts After Switching to Android

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A lawsuit has been filed against Apple over the issue of iPhones failing to deliver text messages to Android phones, according to Bloomberg.
The suit was filed by a former iPhone customer who alleges she changed to a non-Apple device and stopped getting messages, Bloomberg says. The suit, seeking class-action status, was filed in federal court in San Jose, California, Bloomberg says:

Apple’s iMessage retains text messages sent from other users of Apple devices and won’t deliver them to her Samsung Electronics Co. phone running on Google Inc.’s Android operating system, Adrienne Moore said in the complaint filed yesterday in San Jose, California.

People who replace their Apple devices with non-Apple wireless phones and tablets are “penalized and unable to obtain the full benefits of their wireless-service contracts,” according to the complaint.

Texts get "stuck" briefly or permanently inside an iPhone's iMessage system when they're directed at someone who used to have an iPhone but has switched their number to an Android phone.

Here's some background on the iPhone-Android text issue.

Yesterday we noted that an Apple customer-support employee admitted to Lifehacker's Adam Pash that, in fact, "a lot" of users have this problem: If you switch from an iPhone to an Android, iMessage won't deliver texts from iPhone users to your new Android phone.

For years, users have suspected that iPhone behaves weirdly when sending texts to non-Apple users. In a test in BI's office yesterday, a text sent from an iPhone reached our iPhone-using colleagues several seconds before it showed up on Samsung devices. Earlier, The New York Times' David Segal complained that he stopped receiving message from iPhone users altogether after he dumped the Apple device for an Android.

Justin Frazier, a Business Insider reader, tells us he's interested in the fate of the suit because the issue cost him a Samsung Galaxy S5, which was not able to receive texts from Apple users:

I previously had an iPhone 5 and purchased a Galaxy S5 a few days after the release. I was wary of previous complaints about the issue so I made sure to turn off iMessage and log out of all my Apple accounts before making the switch. After switching I talked with a bunch of friends with iPhones who would try and message me. They told me one day it would go through as a text and the next it would send as iMessage, which of course I couldn't receive. Group messages I was a part of were even worse, as some messages would come through to me and others wouldn't. AT&T couldn't help and referred me to Apple. Apple made sure my number was not in their database and told me to update to the latest OS. After informing them it did not solve the problem they did not have any other solutions. I kept my phone for 10 days to see if the extra time would solve the issue, to no avail. I was forced to return the GS5 and revert to my iPhone. I feel this is something the Apple developers could fix in a heartbeat, but are in no rush as it benefits the company.

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