“You have the wrong number. This is a child's phone:” iPhone to Android switch goes wrong
One messy phone switch.
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- A Reddit user said sensitive iMessages meant for their boyfriend were sent to a child.
- The problem likely stemmed from an old iPhone number still linked to Apple’s iMessage service.
- Users said the number must be removed from the receiving Apple account through Apple’s iMessage deregistration tool.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
A user was sending messages to their boyfriend with “sensitive” content. It took them a month to learn that he wasn’t the one receiving them.
Transferring from iPhone to Android might seem easy if you follow the proper steps. However, forgetting one detail, such as proper number deregistering, could have awkward consequences.
“I may have accidentally been texting a child instead of my boyfriend?” wrote one Reddit user.
The original poster, an iPhone user, shared that a month ago, their boyfriend got an Android phone with a new number.
The Redditor noticed that sometimes the messages sent would be blue.
When sending messages on an iPhone, a blue text box indicates that the message was sent using Apple's iMessage service.
Meanwhile, the green color indicates that the message was delivered as a standard SMS/MMS, suggesting it was sent to a non-iPhone user.
The man assumed the messages were sent in blue because his phone number had also been added to his daughter’s iPad.
However, after sending messages to their boyfriend, the Redditor received a message back, stating: “You have the wrong number. This is a child's phone.”
“I’m horrified because I sent sensitive pictures the literal night before I got these texts and have sensitive messages from before too,” shared the post author.
New phone, same number: how could this happen?
The Redditor later said that the kid’s parent must’ve deregistered the number from Apple since the text messages are now only shown in green.
But before this, the author was looking for ways to “alleviate the situation,” especially since their text messages had been going to the wrong recipient for a month.
This could’ve happened if their partner hadn’t properly reset their iPhone or disconnected from the Messages account before switching to an Android.
Because of this, the messages the original poster sent to their boyfriend’s phone number were delivered to his old device.
What to do in such a case?
The main solution in this situation, offered by other users as well, was to deregister the number via Apple’s Deregister iMessage.
However, netizens started a debate over who gets to deregister the number: the boyfriend or the person who has been recently receiving text messages.
“The kid has to deregister, not the boyfriend,” wrote one user.
Strong password generator
“The boyfriend has the number, but not access to the iCloud account connected to it. The issue is the iCloud account sees iMessages to a number it associates with an in-use account and sends them to the iCloud account, not through SMS,” explained another netizen.
“iMessage doesn’t know that the number is now in an Android phone, so it doesn’t try to send it as SMS. So the child or parent needs to unlink the phone number from their iCloud, it’s the only way for iMessage to stop hijacking the texts, they concluded.
Issue with phone numbers
“In the words of Tim Cook, 'Buy your boyfriend an iPhone,’” joked one user, referring to the old and never-ending debate over what’s better – an iPhone or Android.
The issue shared by the Redditor appeared to be quite common among users who switched from iPhone to Android. Many also noticed that phone numbers are being “recycled” more often.
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“The boyfriend got a new phone number. That number belonged to someone who didn’t deregister it from their Apple when they canceled or moved their service,” shared one netizen, adding, “America seems to have recycled numbers more often, or I just see it more on here.”
It’s been reported that Apple and Google are working to make communication between their devices smoother by using end-to-end encryption for cross-platform messaging.
This isn’t the only feature that was supposed to make communication between users of two operating systems. Samsung has introduced AirDrop support via Quick Share, which allows users to share content with Apple users.
