The issue was first spotted on Reddit, where numerous users have stated that texting from an Android phone to an iPhone is adding an extra digit to the phone number, turning it into an incorrect one. Interestingly, this issue seems to occur with Android users that own an AT&T phone. (via 9to5Mac)
More precisely, the bug makes iPhones place a “+” sign at the beginning of the phone number, which transforms it into a fake international one. It is not clear whether it is the carrier or the device itself that is causing this.
The reports state that once the iPhone owner sends a text message to an Android user and gets a reply, the reply starts a new thread but with the aforementioned “+” at the beginning of the Android user’s phone number. Responding to the message in this new thread results in an invalid number error on the iPhone owner’s side, but the message is nevertheless received by the other party.
Put a bit more simply, the Android user can only send messages via the new (bugged) thread, while the iPhone can send them only in the original one without getting an error. In other words, the two parties are forced to use two threads in order to communicate.
Now, before you go on and start some wild conspiracy that Apple is trying to sabotage even more texting between iOS and Android, keep in mind that this is very likely a problem caused by the carrier. Otherwise, it would have affected users that are not on AT&T. For now, if you own an iPhone and want to text an Android user that’s on AT&T, just use a different messaging app.
