Recently got my HTC 8X and love the phone but noticed that it wasn't able to send group text messages. A quick search seems to show that Verizon removed the feature. Why?
http://www.wpcentral.com/verizon-ditches-group-messaging-windows-phone
Cheers
Wow, that sucks. Like the article said, it sounds like its a network issued so may they will come out with an update once they get it figured out. In the end, it looks like I will be getting Whatsapp or something similar to send out group messages. Nice part about doing it on the app is I can send text via data so if I am overseas, its free on wifi!
for the record, all I said was >Yes that word will get edited and it did again<but that gets blocked. good lord.\\
>Take time to read the
Message was edited by: Verizon Moderator
Looks like Verizon can't figure out how to make it work? Should have went to AT&T...
My entire family has Trophys and had Ozones before that. Long-time Verizon customers.
The trophy has group chat enabled and it works fine. No idea why it's turned off for the new Windows Phone 8 phones. Also cannot send MMS for some reason. These two issues are likely to end my 5 year relationship with Verizon and send me to AT&T.
Completely agree, removing a feature like group messaging is completely unacceptable. I'll be switching back to my Trophy until Verizon figures out how to re-enable group messaging on the 8X.
Verizon, is there any information you can give on why this feature was removed and when we can expect it back?
peer forum, you arent talking to verizon.
maybe it will be updated in a software update in the future.. if thats a major feature you need, take the phone back. I'm sure you're within yout 14 days since it sounds like this feature is so vital to your daily life
While I wish they hadn't removed this great feature, if you frequently message the same group of people, don't forget that you can message them all by adding them to a "Group" from the People Hub (or a "Room" if they also have WP8s). Might help alleviate the frustration until they (hopefully) add this feature back in.
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Another great phone **** by Verizon. I've been with Verizon for 15+ years, this is not the first time they do this to great phones...
I hope they add it back, I was thinking about getting this phone off contract (wont give up my unlimited data plan, verizon you ****, AT&T users got to keep theirs) but, with this kind of thing, it makes me re-think it.
Am I the only one that enjoys the fact that Moderators are editing what users are posting on the threads that talk about the absence of Group Messaging but they refuse to comment on them. . . It is obnoxious that something the Windows Phone pretty much pioneered with the release of the WP7s two years ago is not on the WP8s only on Verizon. I called a Customer Rep just to see if I could get anything out of him on the possibility of a messaging app coming out that would support it, I kid you not, he said, "I am sorry, can you explain to me what Group Messaging is? I have never heard of it." When I took the bait and "explained" to him a feature that he obviously knows about he then continued to say "I don't think the Windows Phones support that feature, if they did it would be available on your phone." At that point I hung up because I could no longer listen to the blatant lying that was trying to be veiled as ignorance.
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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.
The upcoming Portico update will include mass messaging among other things such as performance fixes and Ignore Call with SMS.
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.
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.
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:
4. Enter your message.
5. Tap "send msg" symbol.
Happy Texting!
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.
<< Duplicate post - see >>
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.
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.
Its unreal a company does something that ruins the experience for its users.
Date: Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:47:18 -0700
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I've heard conflicting reports that this is and is not disabled on the Lumia phone that Verizon has. If it works on the Lumia phone, well then there is likely some oddity with the HTC 8X that causes a problem. There was a story on Gizmodo or Engadget of messaging issues with the Windows phones on Verizon's network prior to launch and this could have been the solution to avoid delaying the launch date.
A new messaging solution from Verizon would only seem to make sense if Verizon was blocking group messaging on new iPhones, Androids, and other phones they are selling today. Focusing this only on the HTC 8X or Windows Phones would be odd for a new product launch.
I'm curious if anyone has tried using a sim card from one of the other providers and install the Pontico update and also enabled this option disabled by Verizon. That could be away around this.
Sent from my Windows Phone
I think this response would fit better in a thread about Portico.
However, to your point. I have tried this. I swapped my buddy's T-Mobile HTC 8X SIM in and was able to make calls over T-Mo's network with my VZW phone. When I went to Settings > Phone Update, I wasn't able to trigger an update. I think it's phone—not network—specific.
[image: The Start screen on my VZW HTC 8X using a T-Mo SIM]
EDIT: Looks like some users have been successful, though: https://community.verizonwireless.com/message/922258#922258
Do I understand you correctly that the built-in system group messaging will be available with the Portico update?
There shouldn't be a need to find a way around this. This is the most ridiculous change they could make. It was an awesome feature on the W7 phones, so why take it away? I can't even explain how frustrating it is to receive a text out of the blue with a response to another text that I either didn't get or read and forgot about already.
My 822 stopped receiving picture messages for some reason but I can still send them, has anyone else had this happen? I'm considering leaving Verizon if they don't fix this mess.
I just purchased a Nokia 822 Windows phone. I found out right away that the Group Texting capability was removed from their MMS capability. I am within the 14 day window, so I am think about switching . . . I really like the Windows phone 8.0 . . . don't know why Verizon would do this.
I agree that a solid explanation is needed for why this feature was removed. This is a key use case for most modern phones, everyone with an iPhone is group texting. Everyone with a phone period is group texting. My fiance's Palm Treo from 2007 supported group texting. I love my Windows Phone, but this is seriously a deal breaker. I hope this is going to be resolved VERY soon. It's a shame that Verizon is willing to sell a product that is not fully functional (fully functional on modern phones means group texting, its just that simple). If there was an issue with the group texting, perhaps Verizon should have delayed the release date of the phone and not made so many customers unhappy.
Had I really understood this issue within my 14-day return period, I would have returned my phone. I love the WP 8 OS, it is pretty cool, but with a piece missing that I use so often, the device is significantly crippled. I hesitate to blame Verizon fully for this, as I've mentioned in other posts, but it remains a very basic functionality that everyone assumes to be part of any phone purchased. It's like buying a new Lexus in Phoenix, to find out that the the tubes connecting the air conditioner to the vents got held up in the QA process and weren't included, but will be available once summer is over.
Verizon, this is unreal, unacceptable, and completely insane. Please release a statement or something answering the questions of group messaging. I am very upset with your lack of innovation. You have become a giant of the mobile market and have neglected why this company used to be cool. Perhaps it's the 8x, although ATT customers can use the group messaging feature. Completely dissapointed & frustrated. I will be switching back to iPhone after 24 hours having my HTC 8x.
I have received an update from a Verizon tech who states that there is currently discussion going on about this issue and that it would be addressed in a future software update. I'm not sure how valid this was as it may be possible that the Verizon rep wanted to get me off the phone but I did talk to level 2 support so I'm hoping there is validity to this statement. I know it's not the answer we want but it does give us a little ray of hope at seeing this issue resolved.
I hope, but I'm not to holding my breath. I feel my next opportunity for real group communication will be when Microsoft's Skype act gets together, although I was told by that team that it won't notify you when messages are received in a group conversation, so you'd still be constantly checking to see if you had new messages to view.
I actually just wrote a post about this verizon pitfall: http://skeene.net/tech/verizon-cripples-group-communication/
Verizon has launched a Verizon Messages app that allows this on every platform except Windows Phones. So they disable our built-in group messaging function built into Windows Phone, but not given us access to their replacement. Seems kind of unfair.
Things get even worse, so there is an app called "Verizon Messages" that is suppose to work both mobile and PC. Except that it is only available for GENERAL CONSUMERS. As a business manager who was sold on the idea of being able to broadcast (Office Closing for weather conditions, and emergency messages), to groups now I have to wait for an update or patch. now I have to individual pick names from the address book one at a time and can't even sort by a group to make it easier. Contract renewal is coming up soon, will have to see what T-Mobile/AT&T has to offer.
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I'm upset that I "Upgraded" from my WP7 Trophy, on which group messaging worked fine as expected, to a WP8 8x, on which group messaging doesn't exist.
I'm even MORE upset that the same 8x phone on AT&T has a fully functional group messaging feature. I'll definitely won't be re-upping my Verizon contract any further. There's no good reason for the 8x to have this turned off. It's supremely annoying, and the fact that the phone has been out for 6 months without this being fixed is unacceptable.
If you call Verizon they will tell you that they plan to fix this by releasing an update sometime in June. Hope this helps!
Its July now and still nothing!
Yea, I called in the middle of June and they changed it to July. What a coincidence. But, I don't have the most up to date info as of now but all I know is July. Call Verizon and say "I was wondering when your gonna update the HTC 8X regarding group messages", they should say what month it will be released. And, i'm eagerly waiting for the update as well, but nothing.
Why would Verizon remove this feature? I had a Sprint Windows Phone and it worked perfectly.
It's coming in GDR2, which may be out tomorrow.
http://support.verizonwireless.com/support/pdf/system_update/windows-8x.pdf
https://community.verizonwireless.com/message/991236#991236
I just got the GDR2 update. Group texting is back!!
