Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?
greenwave85
Enthusiast - Level 2

This doesn't really help much because it is a nuisance on the other end.  It sends the message to each person in the group individually so if there is a conversation going on your texts aren't embedded within the thread.  To subside this problem if you send a picture or any other MMS to a group it is sent as a group message to the people you sent it to so the message is embedded within the running thread.  This is what I do.  It is still incredibly inconvenient because the what they send is not threaded on my end, so it is fun when I am away from my phone for a couple hours and I come back to 100 messages and I have to figure out what is going on by reading the conversation from one perspective at a time. . . And by fun I mean very ridiculous and completely unacceptable.  If I would have known this was an issue I would not have switched from AT&T.  I am wondering if the lack of group messaging is a tech problem with the Windows Phones or if it deliberate because they want to make a proprietary app that forces users to use their software.

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Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?
drichter
Contributor - Level 1

The upcoming Portico update will include mass messaging among other things such as performance fixes and Ignore Call with SMS.

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Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?
JF74
Enthusiast - Level 2

I have to second some of the comments made by greenwave85. I held on to a very old Treo 700W before switching to the HTC8X. What a surprise to find when I send a message to a bunch of people, their responses come back as individual texts and are not part of the text chain. I have no idea if they sent it just to me or everyone I sent the message to. If they don't respond for a few days, I probably don't recall what I sent them and don't understand their response. If I receive a message that was clearly sent to a group, I have no idea who all received the message, and, when the other recipients respond, I have no clue as to which message they are replying to no can I tell if they are they replying to me or someone else.

Messaging with HTC 8X, on Verizon is not currently usable, in my opinion. I realize that this is a limitation placed on the phone by Verizon, not HTC, and HTC apologized to me for the inconvenience. Verizon, however, was very rude about it, insisting that I could send group messages, and even referred me to the User Manual on the Verizon website, which references the Group text option, insisting that I could access that setting when my own eyes and HTC told me otherwise. With my Treo I could at least see everyone included on a text and reply to all.

Group messaging is basic functionality for today's cell phones. This shouldn't even be an issue.

Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?
drichter
Contributor - Level 1

I misunderstood this post. I thought you meant like selecting multiple contacts and sending a message. I have never been able to use group messaging. Just last week one person sent a mass message from their iPhone and I got a million messages from the other people replying. It was SO FREAKING ANNOYING. Now I see that if I had mass messaging this would have grouped it all together. Verzion...ugh, they better change this. I get those mass messages all the time. I never had this feature on my Galaxy Nexus but knowing I could have it and not getting it is obnoxious.

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Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?
RonMcK3
Enthusiast - Level 2

Unless I'm misunderstanding what you want to do, you can send Group Messages from your 8-X.

You can do this in one of two ways:

1. Send a message to an established Group

          or

2. Send a message to multiple recipients, selected ad hoc when you create your message.

To use the first method, you need to use an existing Group or create a New Group.

1. Tap on People on Start screen

2. Scroll right to the "together" screen.

3. Access a Group, or tap the + symbol to create new one.

4. Tap "text" to start a message to your group.

5. Enter your message.

6. Tap "send msg" symbol.

To use the second method:

1. Tap the Text Msg symbol (the balloon with the 🙂 symbol)

2. Tap the + symbol at the bottom of the threads screen

3. Enter the person or persons you want to send your msg to by entering:

  • one or more cell phone numbers, 
  • user names (from your addressbook), or 
  • tap the small + symbol on the right side of the address line to bring up your address book so you can select people from it.

4. Enter your message.

5. Tap "send msg" symbol.

Happy Texting!

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Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?
JF74
Enthusiast - Level 2

RomMcK3, I believe that you did misunderstand at least some of the issues with messaging on the Verizon HTC 8X currently. Hopefully the new update will resolve those, but it could be a while before Verizon makes it available.

First Method: If I had to create a Group for every conceivable combination of people I might ever text, first, that's ridiculous and second, I'll never remember who is in what Group. It's a useless way to deal with Group Messaging. Anyone I add to a message should be part of a Group message automatically. I haven't played with this to see how replies work, i.e. if they stay together or appear as individual replies.

Second Message: Sure, I can add multiple people to a text message, that's not the the problem. The issues are:

1.  When recipients respond, their responses don't come back as part of the group message that I started, they look like individual text messages.

2.  I don't have a way to know if they responded to just me or everyone in the group.

3. I don't have a way to know what message in the chain of messages anyone is replying to.

4. If someone else started a group message, I have no idea whether or not it is a group message. As far as I can tell, it was sent only to me. Then if other people respond, I still can only reply to the person who sent the reply and not the entire group. I could manually add those I know are part of the group if they also responded, but that could get ugly if someone was intentionally removed from the group, but I add them back in, because I have no clue they were excluded. I have no idea who received the original message or any of the replies from other people.

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Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?
jcx
Enthusiast - Level 1

<< Duplicate post - see >>

Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator

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Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?
johntp
Newbie

To have Verizon disable a feature that the phone is clearly capable of is infuriating. We have been Verizon customers forever (well over 5 years) and moves like this with no reason given as to why this disabled the feature will have me switch carriers next time my contract is up for renewal.

I don't by that its a network issue. The phone sends group messages (you can send a message to a number of recipients) and it seems that when you receive group messages they are received as MMS messages. It seems to me that Verizon disabled the ability for the phone to parse the messages it receives and display them in a group thread. This is a hostile action against the consumer in my view.

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Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?
tomX
Newbie

This isn't a network issue. OEM's have the ability to remove certain features. This feature was removed by a registry key setting from what I understand and was specifically requested by Verizon. I figured they were going to release a super AWESOME group messaging app/service that they could charge you 0.99 a month for. Ugh.

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Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?
johntp
Newbie

Its unreal a company does something that ruins the experience for its users.

Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:47:18 -0700

<Email address removed for privacy per the .>

Subject: Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon? - Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?

                                                                                Re: Why was group messaging removed by Verizon?

    created by tomX in 8X by HTC  - View the full discussion

This isn't a network issue. OEM's have the ability to remove certain features. This feature was removed by a registry key setting from what I understand and was specifically requested by Verizon. I figured they were going to release a super AWESOME group messaging app/service that they could charge you 0.99 a month for. Ugh.

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