Are your iMessage texts disappearing? The answer might just be checking your email

If you use both an Android phone and Apple devices, an Apple service usually irrelevant to your cross-platform life can quietly make a mess of your messages. 

For people who stick to iPhones, iPads and Macs, Apple’s iMessage service offers numerous benefits: end-to-end encryption, fancy messaging effects and features, the ability to read and write messages from any of those devices, and those goofy “Memoji” avatars. 

But if your mobile existence involves Google’s Android, iMessage can become a rogue air traffic controller, diverting messages from iPhone-using friends over to your iPad or Mac and away from your smartphone.

Weirder yet, I’ve seen an iPhone pal’s “tapbacks” – the likes, loves and laughs you can send with a tap – reach my phone but not their own words.