text messages

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on text messages:

With PhoneRescue, your iPhone texts are never really lost

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PhoneRescue offers a direct line on the deleted data still tucked away in your phone.
PhoneRescue offers a direct line on the deleted data still tucked away in your phone.
Photo: iMobie

This post is presented by iMobie, maker of PhoneRescue.

Your iPhone carries a lot of information, but it’s not a locked box. Eventually, for one reason or another, you’ll go to find a text thread or photo that you’re sure you kept, except you didn’t. Well, with the right tool, almost any data that was lost can be found again.

Apple wants to save you from the embarrassment of misdirected messages

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Just yesterday I had the experience of sending a text message to the wrong person. Okay, luckily it wasn’t a compromising message in any sense, but it goes to show what happens when you’re carrying out too many text conversations at the same time.

Clearly someone at Apple has had a similar experience, because a patent published Thursday reveals how future iOS devices might incorporate background images of the people you’re messaging, to ensure you don’t send out misdirected messages.

Troubles Sending Text Messages On iPhone? Try This Fix [iOS Tips]

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Send as SMS

Some users have reported problems with sending text messages to their friends and family after the upgrade to iOS 7.

Typically, when iMessage is unavailable, your iPhone should send messages as SMS ones instead, denoted by the green chat bubble as opposed to the regular blue.

If, however, your iPhone won’t send texts automatically, here’s a possible fix.

How To Delete Text Messages From Your iPhone In iOS 7 [iOS Tips]

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Delete Text Messages

It used to be simple to delete text messages from your iPhone (or, I suppose, your iPad if you use iMessages), but with iOS 7, the cute little Edit button has gone away from the upper right corner. Instead, there’s a Contact button up there, which–while useful–used up the space where the Edit button used to be.

You can still delete entire message conversations by swiping to the left in the list of all your text messages, but how do you delete specific messages within a conversation? Swiping to the left just shows you the timestamps of the messages.

Never fear, we’ve got the answer.

Mastering iMessages On Your iPhone: Send Them As A Regular Text Message [iOS Tips]

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SMSiMessage

Not too long ago, there were a couple of iMessage service outages. When that happened, I (and many other folks, I bet) wasn’t able to send out my iMessages. The little red exclamation point would show up, mockingly, and I waited for the service to go back online to send them again.

Luckily, there is a way to easily turn that iMessage into a regular SMS text message, thereby avoiding any service outages from Apple. Here’s how to do just that.

Use Messages To Schedule Events In Mountain Lion’s Calendar App [OS X Tips]

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Add Events Calendar

Mac OS X has had the ability to recognize data like dates, times, and phone numbers for a while now. If you’re using the Mail app, you can right click on a recognized date and add it to the Calendar app. If you right click on a phone number, you can add it to the Contacts app. Pretty neat, right?

But what you may not have known, however, is that the app you can see iMessages in from anyone on an iOS or OS X device, Messages, is also able to recognize this data, making adding Calendar events from within Messages super easy. Here’s how to do it.

Why Apple’s iMessage Isn’t A Home Run For Businesses

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imessage
iMessage has a lot to offers a secure messaging platform, but it isn't without flaws.

When Apple unveiled iMessage, one of the first thoughts for many IT professionals and business users was that Apple had come up with a secure messaging platform that could rival RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger. While iMessage has a lot going for it as a secure messaging platform, there are still some reasons that it may not be an ideal business solution.

Forward Or Delete iMessages Right From Your iPhone [iOS Tips]

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MessageFWD

Here’s an obvious yet often overlooked tip – something that I’ve personally looked at every time I use the Messages app on my iPhone, but never really “connected” with.

I’ve often needed to send along a specific text message, to a boss or co-worker, or even to a family member. I’ve often copied an individual message, then pasted it into a message of my own to the new person.

Starting in iOS 5 iOS 4, though, there’s an easier way – forwarding it. Here’s how.

Apple Online Store Now Offers Text Message Notifications For Order Status Updates

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Apple will now text you to let you know when your online order ships.
Apple will now text you to let you know when your online order ships.

Following nearly six hours of downtime this morning, the Apple Online Store is back up. Although the Cupertino company has not added any new products, it has introduced a new notifications service that provides U.S. customers with text message alerts when their order status is updated.

Encryption iPhone App Slated For Release – PGP Rides Again

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Zimmerman

Phil Zimmerman, the creator of Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption for email in the 1990s, has come to the forefront yet again as the spokesman for Silent Circle, a company planning to beta test an encrypted phone call and text message app for the iPhone and other smartphones. The app will be free when it’s released in July of this year, but the service itself will cost somewhere in the $20 per month range.

Zimmerman, long a proponent of technological solutions to civil liberties, thinks people will pay for the privacy.

“I’m not going to apologize for the cost,” he told CNET, “This is not Facebook. Our customers are customers. They’re not products. They’re not part of the inventory.”

That may well be the case, but getting consumers to pay subscription fees is notoriously difficult. Silent Circle plans to offer a solution for easily encrypted email, phone calls, and instant messaging to start, with plans for encrypted SMS in the future.

In addition to the iPhone release, Zimmerman told CNET that the company was planning to roll out an app for Mac and PC as well, but that it’s not ready, yet. They’ll focus on the mobile app first, allowing customers to communicate securely if they both have the app installed. If only one does, the information will be encrypted to Silent Circle’s servers, but not from there to a recipient’s phone.

This sounds great for most consumers needing to keep their legal communication safe and private, but it’s unlikely that lawmakers will see it the same way. It’s possible that Phil Zimmerman may yet again fall under scrutiny as he did when he released his first encryption product nearly two decades ago.

Via: Boing Boing

Nationwide Wireless Emergency Text Alert System Launching This Month

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The federal government along with U.S. wireless providers will be rolling out a new Emergency Text Alert System this month. The service will be free and will provide geographically targeted wireless emergency alerts for life-threatening events such as: tornadoes, flash floods, hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis, dust storms, extreme winds, blizzards and ice storms. The text alerts will be brief and will inform consumers to seek additional information or immediately seek shelter if necessary. You may have experienced such alerts via third party weather application or private services but this will be the first national service by the federal government and the wireless industry.

Black SMS iPhone App Encrypts Your Texts, No Jailbreak Required [Review]

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Private messages stay private with Black SMS
Private messages stay private with Black SMS

When Cliff Weitzman emailed me about his Black SMS iPhone app, I was impressed by the pitch alone. An App Store app that encrypts text messages and emails between iPhones and iPads? Sign me up!

Black SMS accomplishes a task that I haven’t seen anything from the App Store come close to replicating. It does indeed encrypt your texts and emails so that they are unreadable without the Black SMS app and an associated password. CIA agents and paranoid boyfriends should take notice of this one.

87% Of iPhone 4S Owners Are Still Using Siri At Least Once A Month [Report]

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Siri is still popular among many iPhone 4S owners, but not everyone uses it to its full potential.
Siri is still popular among many iPhone 4S owners, but not everyone uses it to its full potential.

For some iPhone 4S users, Siri is a novelty that quickly wears off within a week or two of unwrapping the handset. But believe it or not, 87% of iPhone 4S users are still using the intelligent assistant at least once a month, according to a new study. Not many of them are using it to its full potential, however.

Carrier IQ: We Only Unintentionally Collected Smartphone Users’ Text Messages

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iphone-sms-text-message

Carrier IQ CEO Larry Lenhart and vice president of marketing Andrew Coward have revealed in an interview that despite the company’s assurance that no personal data is recorded by its software, a “bug” did unintentionally collect users’ text messages. What it does collect intentionally — particularly for the Federal Bureau of Investigation — is yet to be clarified, with the FBI refusing to disclose this information.