If you don’t all have the same Apple gadget, then you could see your group’s messages breaking into separate responses.

Apple protects us from the majority aspects of the mobile world’s text messaging system SMS (Short Messaging Service), and also the multimedia version, MMS. If the person you’re texting is using Apple’s iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, you see lovely blue bubbles. It’s managed by the Apple iMessage system.

If it’s SMS or MMS, which shows messages in green–Apple keeps the complexity hidden, by packaging it into the Messages application on different platforms.

However, you may be confused by a specific situation such as one reader in the case of group messaging: they are using it with no Apple ecosystem members, and every message is returned in a separate message. The group isn’t getting replies in a unified way!

It turns out it’s linked to that nagging wire that runs behind the scenes. If you want to use group messaging with iMessage or MMS, you must rely on an MMS feature.

If the feature isn’t available or your service doesn’t support it, then you’ll get individual responses to every group message that is sent.

If you want to enable it, if it’s accessible you need to go into settings > messages and then enable the MMS messaging or group messaging. If neither option is accessible then contact your provider.