Something Fishy Is Going On With My iMessages...

Over the last several months I've received a lot of iMessages like these from my friends:

"Your message just came from your iCloud?"

Or...

"You're showing up not as a number but on iCloud."

I've had it happen the other way, too. A few weeks ago, my editor Jay Yarow sent me an iMessage, but it came from his @icloud.com email address, not the phone number I have saved under his contact information.

In short, it seems like the iPhone is decoupling people's iCloud email addresses from the phone numbers they registered with iMessage. That means unless someone has your iCloud email address saved in their contacts, the message will start a new thread and appear as "stevekovach@icloud.com" instead of "Steve Kovach."

I asked on Twitter, and several people told me they've experienced the same issue with other iMessage users. There are few discussions about it in Apple's online support forums too.

What's going on?

It seems like the issue started happening to some people when Apple released its latest software update for iPhones, iOS 8.1, but we can't be sure. An Apple spokesperson declined to comment.

So, how do you fix it?

The best solution is to go into your iPhone's settings an unlink your email address from iMessage. It's not ideal, but at least people who have your number stored in their phones won't have to worry about iMessage decoupling it from your iCloud email address.

First, go to Settings.

Select Messages.

Select Send & Receive.

Tap to uncheck all the email addresses associated with your iMessage account.