The most common case I know of for what looks like misdirection is having one contact with multiple iMessage phone numbers, especially if multiple contacts share one or more of them. Real world example, my wife and I each have both a work iPhone and a personal iPhone. If both are listed in a single contact, iOS will “helpfully” merge the iMessages from both on a sender’s device, but not on the receiver’s. It’s very difficult to tell which device you’re sending to in this case, and can be changed by the other party if they send you a message and you reply. If you didn’t know what was going on, that would look a whole lot like a message going to the wrong device or even recipient in some cases. As a result I literally have separate contacts for my wife to avoid the problem, the UX is otherwise really abysmal.
This is how iMessage works, not contacts, and as a user of the iPhone since its launch in 2007 this is surprisingly unexpected to me. I would expect each separate email/phone number to have its own conversation.
No, that’s only what happens in iMessage or iOS messages. In almost every other context you get one set per number or email, possibly with an option for a combined conversation. That’s really the issue, there’s no indicator in the conversation of which number or email you’re communicating with, or which you’re sending to, and no interface for separating or combining them. It happens non-deterministically at some point after adding multiple to the same contact, sometimes. That’s why I say the UX is poor, it’s unpredictable and uncontrollable even for someone that knows to look.
I am not trying to argue with you. The method of separating or combining emails/numbers to me lies within the contact.
Because imessages can be sent from both emails and phone numbers (e.g. iphone as well as ipad without cellular connection) i’m not sure if there is a way to handle it while also accommodating your preference
Again, this has nothing to do with contacts and everything to do with the interface of the messaging app, as I and the person you responded to said. Also, the person you're replying to literally described a way to handle it while accommodating everyone (offer an indication in the UI of what's happening, and present the option to combine the conversation).
