Open Radar

 
Summary:

The way that iMessage handles "Caller ID" is confusing and causes a poor user experience.

SAMPLE CASE #1

Steps to Reproduce:

Send a message from your iPhone with the default Caller ID (phone number). Send another message from your iPod touch with the default Caller ID (Apple ID email).

Expected Results:

The recipient receives both messages in the same thread. Any replies are delivered to both devices.

Actual Results:

The recipient receives each message in a separate thread. Replies to the iPhone message will be delivered only to the iPhone. Replies to the iPod touch message will be delivered to both devices.

Regression:

This bug has existed as long as iMessage has been available on non-iPhone devices.

SAMPLE CASE #2

Steps to Reproduce:

Send a reply to an iMessage that has an email address as the sender/"Caller ID" from an iPhone with no data connectivity.

Expected Results:

The message is delivered as an SMS to the recipient's phone if applicable, or is held until data service is available.

Actual Results:

iMessage falls back to sending an MMS to the Apple ID email address. This results in an email from mms.att.net (in the case of an AT&T iPhone) arriving in the user's email inbox, which is quite counterintuitive.

Regression:

This bug has existed as long as iMessage has been available on non-iPhone devices.

Notes:

These are only two sample cases among several that are caused by the handling of Caller ID on iMessage. The addition of iMessage functionality to the Messages beta makes this even more significant.