Just dont like or love or laugh at anything, ever

January 30, 2021 4:13 PM

Is there any way I can disable or block those horrible liked/laughed/emphasized etc txt messages from my friends who are iphone users?

My friends who are iphone users constantly like or love or emphasize or laugh at a txt and then I get a separate txt stating that fact. If it's just a one on one conversation, its fine. But for example I'm in a txt chain right now with a bunch of people and there will be 20 new messages and MAYBE three of them are real and the remaining 17 will be these inane "so and so laughed at {yes it is cold out}"

There has got to be a way to disable this for droid users. I have already muted the conversation so I dont get the notifications, but I do want to read the messages where people are actually saying something!

posted by silverstatue to Technology (9 answers total)

I'm sorry. I hate this, too, and run into tons of problems texting with apple users that they never even notice--for example, I'll sometimes get double texts on a group text with two iphone users if one of us doesn't currently have wifi. They have no idea any of this is happening, it seems. The only solution I've found is to get them to switch to an app like whatsapp for group texts--but one group of friends refuses to do so. It's frustrating, but what can you do?
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 4:16 PM on January 30, 2021 [1 favorite]

What’s weird to me is that if there’s a non apple user in the chat the “reactions” will come through as a text message for everyone. So it often happens that in a large group chat we’ll get an errant “so and so loved ”XYZ” text come through but they’re annoying for EVERYONE not just the android users so people generally shy away. The reactions only work properly with iMessage.
posted by raccoon409 at 6:14 PM on January 30, 2021 [2 favorites]

My solution has been to ask to not be included in text chains.
posted by aniola at 8:12 PM on January 30, 2021

I have half a mind to link this question to such text threads.
posted by GPF at 8:25 PM on January 30, 2021

Switch to a different app for group conversations?
posted by Balthamos at 5:45 AM on January 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

Yeah, we have better luck group texting via WhatsApp if there are non Apple users involved for exactly this reason.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 6:15 AM on January 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

In regular, on-going text threads, I (or invariably someone else, like my brother) will nicely ask iPhone people to stop with the reactions, and we'll send screen shots showing how annoying it is. Then we ask them to just use emojis, please, for the love of god.
posted by cooker girl at 6:57 AM on January 31, 2021

As an iPhone user, in text chains that include Android users, I also get those "[name] loved x" because the inclusion of Android users automatically converts iPhone messages to SMS. So I feel the same way about this situation, but for a different reason. I don't think asking people to stop using their phone the way they want to is the right thing to do. Fortunately, I've been able to switch some groups over to Slack.
posted by emelenjr at 10:23 AM on January 31, 2021

Switch to a different app for group conversations?

Most of the group chats I'm in have moved to Telegram because it allows a lot better control over notifications (plus editing, better photos, etc.).
posted by Candleman at 2:04 PM on January 31, 2021