iMessage Held My Conversations Hostage After Converting Away From iOS

So I got the Nexus 4.

More about that in a later post. One of the opportunity cost when converting to Android from an iPhone, would be forgoing the iMessage feature exclusively made available between iOS devices.

As much as it is a joy to have, it is also a pain to remove. There were no clear instructions on how to stop receiving iMessages from friends who are on iOS devices despite deactivation. And since I'm on another mobile platform, I was not able to receive these messages despite being sent to my service number.

 

Enable-imessage

 

The general solution, after scouring through a couple of forums, was to sign out of my Apple ID on the iPhone and also switching off iMessage through the settings panel. That does not work. After much tinkering, I manage to find a solution:

And we're done. iMessage is definitely a solid feature in the iOS department but trapping personal conversations in the case a user chooses to switch over to another mobile platform, not cool.