iMessage deactivation tool lets users switch from iOS to Android with ease

The one-click tool deals with a long-standing problem

A customer holds his new iPhone (Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)

Smartphone users switching from iOS to Android have long known that iMessage – Apple’s messaging service that sends texts using data rather than cellular connection – can be a pain to get rid of.

Users that forgot to de-register their smartphone before switching devices would find that their number was still routed through iMessage – meaning any texts sent to their new device from another iPhone user simply wouldn’t be delivered.

Complaints of this nature have been circulating online for years, with users reporting that un-read texts have affected everything from relationships to jobs, with Business Insider even noting that undercover police have been adversely affected by the horribly-designed system.

Now, however, Apple has launched a simple fix: an online tool that lets iPhone users instantly de-register their number from iMesage. Anyone switching from iOS to Android simply punches in their phone number and voila, no undelivered texts.

The solution is simple and easy to use, but it still seems ridiculous that Apple took so long to address the problem. The last time they introduce a one-click-fix tool like this it got rid of U2’s latest album just days after it was released – but perhaps that was more of an emergency?