I have two new iPhone 15 Pro devices, each with a different phone line. I pay to have two phones and two lines completely independent of each other, but most other data – contacts, notes, photos, etc. – is the same on both phones.
Starting with iOS 17.4 (more or less), I've noticed that voicemail for one of my two lines shows up on both phones. It's not my phone provider's action. According to an Apple support representative, this is a new feature by design and there is no way to turn it off other than registering two separate Apple IDs, one for each line.
That seems like a very serious design flaw. You won't know which line the call is coming from, and now you might accidentally answer a call from the wrong number. After setting up a second Apple ID, you'll need to remember which is which, verify two email accounts instead of one (you can't link the same email to two different IDs), remember two passwords, and make sure everything is set up correctly. You should. Shared between both accounts. This is a lot of overhead to impose on users. Because if you think about it, it's a meaningless change unless it's optional and the user can choose. You don't necessarily want identical copies of all your accounts. Use email to go to all your email addresses, or move identical copies of all your mail to all your home, work and vacation mailing addresses. So why would a caller want their voicemail to appear on a device that isn't associated with the line they called from? Apple could make this feature optional if needed, but how would they make it mandatory?
Settings changes have not changed this behavior, including:
Phone
=>My Number
: Each phone is assigned only a single, unique number.Phone
=>Calls on Other Devices
:Off
When you click on the option, it is displayed as ‘Off’.FaceTime
=>Off
, orFaceTime
=>On
, andYou can be reached by FaceTime at
: (no confirmed phone number), orFaceTime
=>On
, andYou can be reached by FaceTime at
: (Only the line of the corresponding phone is selected)Apple ID
=>iCloud
=>Apps using iCloud
=>Phone
=>Off
I'm currently using iOS 17.4.1 and I first noticed the behavior after upgrading to 17.4.
This action should be optional and avoid the need to register a separate Apple ID for each phone line. This increases user overhead and risk of error.
question:
-
Does anyone know a workaround to restore previous functionality? Do you have separate voicemails on different lines on the same Apple ID account?
-
Does anyone know how to convince Apple to fix this buggy feature soon?