Apple's Messages Offers Free Texting With a Side of iPhone Lock-In

[wraggster]

"Who doesn't love free text messages? People who try to transition from an iPhone to any other phone, that's who. Apple's Messages app actively moves conversations away from paid text messages to free Messages. Very convenient until you want to leave your iPhone and switch back to plain old text messages because suddenly you'll be unable to receive text messages from your iPhone-toting friends. There's an obscure workaround (http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/358905/quick-friday-how-turn-imessage-standard-text), and Samsung, which has a vested interest in the matter, has a lengthy guide to removing your iPhone as a registered receiver of Messages (http://www.samsung.com/us/support/SupportOwnersFAQPopup.do?faq_id=FAQ00053450&fm_seq=62995) . But the experience is just annoying enough that it might be the kind of thing that would keep someone from making a switch (http://www.itworld.com/mobile-wireless/407456/hardest-part-switching-iphone-not-delivered-and-how-fix-it) — and that's when it starts to feel like deliberate lock-in, and not so much like something Apple overlooked."

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/14/02/28/2327220/apples-messages-offers-free-texting-with-a-side-of-iphone-lock-in