iMessage - page 10

After texting on the iPhone for awhile, you get used to seeing the “…” bubble mid-conversation. Whenever someone with iMessage is typing to you, the ellipsis bubble appears in that thread of the Message app. It helps you know that whoever you’re talking to is about to respond, and it also gives people away when they choose to start an iMessage and then stop.

What if you could see when someone was sending you an iMessage no matter where you are in iOS? The iPhone’s status bar would be the perfect place to display such a notifier, wouldn’t it?

There have been a ton of great tweaks released for jailbroken iOS devices in 2012. Innovation in the jailbreak community is far from dead, and ideas are continuing to evolve alongside iOS itself. What makes jailbreaking great is the sheer amount of customizability it unlocks. Sometimes a simple idea gives way to a crazy amount of potential.

That’s what this top 10 list of 2012 jailbreak tweaks is about: pushing the limits of what your iOS device can do. Here are the very best quality jailbreak tweaks from the past year:

Wow, I could have used this tip last week when I was getting constant iMessage errors, having to tap the “please try again” icon again and again to send some messages along to my friends. There have been a few iMessage service outages lately, and when that happens, there’s the potential for some upset.

Luckily, there is a way to easily turn that frown upside down as well as turning that iMessage into a regular SMS text message. Here’s how to do just that.

Happy Thanksgiving! This year to observe the holiday we asked each of our writers to tell us a bit about the things they are most thankful for in 2012: specifically, the Apple product, app, service, third-party accessory and person they most relied upon and were grateful for this year. All through the rest of the day, we’ll be posting these thanksgiving observances. Here’s Cult of Mac News Writer Alex Heath’s list of the things he’s most thankful for this year. You can find the rest of our Thanksgiving Smorgasbord entries here.

Looks like iMessage is having some more trouble after yesterday’s news that Apple iOS guru Scott Forstall is leaving the company. 5 days ago we reported a widespread iMessage outage that affected many of our readers around the world for hours. The issue was never addressed by Apple, but now we’re getting word that another outage is plaguing iCloud services.

Apple is currently holding its earnings call for Q4 2012, and now we’re hearing that many of you are experiencing iMessage problems around the world. Despite the fact that Apple is saying all systems are fine on its iCloud status page, it seems that many can’t send or receive iMessages. Game Center and FaceTime also seem to be down for many in different countries, namely areas in North America and Europe.

Last week we discovered the funniest way to play Connector Four on an iPhone. It’s silly and slightly painful, but completely awesome in a nerdy way. Now someone’s raised the stakes and figured out that you can also create games of Checkers or Chess using emoji. If you’re really bored trying to figure out how to celebrate Columbus Day today, now you have an activity that’s guaranteed to take up a few hours of your time.

Source: Reddit

Back in August, we told you about a serious SMS security flaw with the iPhone that opened the door to text message spoofing. At the time, Apple told users they could protect themselves by using its iMessage service rather that traditional SMS messages, but the Cupertino company appears to have rectified the issue in iOS 6.

Today, three months after its first preview at WWDC, iOS 6 has been released to the public and is now available to download via iTunes. We’ve already presented you with a comprehensive guide to everything that’s new — big and small — but which of those features really stands out?

So that you can jump into iOS 6 and quickly start using its killer new features, we’ve compiled a list of our top ten for you to check out. These may not necessarily be the biggest features Apple has introduced, but we’re confident that once you start using them, you’ll agree that they’re the best.

We’ve all been itching to get our hands on iOS 6 since it got its first unveiling at WWDC back in June, and today, three months after that announcement, the software finally gets its public debut. Apple’s packed a ton of new features into this update, including some major new features like Map and Passbook, plus some enhancements to existing apps and features, such as new Siri capabilities and a VIP inbox in Mail.

Apple’s been promoting some of these features on its website, but there are tons you may not have heard about. With that said, here’s your comprehensive guide to everything that’s new in iOS 6.

Reports have hit the web today that Apple’s iMessage service is experiencing a widespread outage. The problem seems to be affecting all sorts of different iOS users, even though Apple’s iCloud status page shows no problems. The outage seems to be carrier independent as a number of users have reported problems on both AT&T and Verizon.

Apple seeded another new OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 build to registered developers through the Apple Dev Center. This one, with build number 12C35, comes just one week after the last build, suggesting Apple is moving quickly to bring this update to the public. Of course, this is the update that will bring Facebook integration to the Mac.

The release of iOS 6 just weeks away. The new release includes a range of new features. Some seem tailor-made for business use like the new VIP contacts feature in Mail. Others are clearly designed for a mass-market consumer audience. Even those consumer-oriented additions have a lot of potential for use in the office, however.

One of, if not the, staple app for jailbreakers is called biteSMS. Apple’s Messages app is nice, but biteSMS takes it to a whole other level. If you have a jailbroken iPhone, there’s no reason you shouldn’t get biteSMS. A marquee feature is the ability to quickly reply to a message from anywhere in iOS (including the lock screen) without entering the actual Messages app. It saves a lot of time and looks really cool. And Quick Reply just scratches the surface of what biteSMS can do.

Fans of biteSMS will be happy to learn that a major update has been released today that brings several new improvements. The Cydia app’s developers have also offered a 50% discount for those of you wishing to buy the version without ads.

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.

Yesterday a nasty iPhone SMS spoofing hack was detailed by iOS hacker pod2g. Someone with malicious intent could theoretically change the reply-to number in a SMS message without your knowledge. For instance, you could receive a SMS from a number pretending to be your bank. If you replied with a password or other sensitive data, your security would be compromised. The hack also allows for someone to send a completely spoofed message from a random number.

This bug has been on the iPhone for years and is still present in the iOS 6 beta. Apple today released an official statement addressing the issue.

Has this happened to you? You’re out and about with friends, and a text message (or iMessage) hits your iPhone. Being a serious iPhone user and Tweeter, of course, you’ve left your iPhone out on the tabletop. Unfortunately, the text message that shows up on your screen isn’t very flattering to the friend sitting immediately to your left. She sees it, gets upset, storms off. Nobody wins.

With a quick trip to Settings, however, you can prevent this tale of tears and keep your iMessages for your eyes only. Here’s how.

It’s hard to believe that it was just a little more than a year ago that Apple released OS X Lion. Only twelve months later, and we’re now staring right down the maw of Apple’s ninth major release of Mac OS X: Mountain Lion.

OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion signifies a new approach on Apple’s part towards OS X updates: instead of going years between major releases, Cupertino is trying to take the rapid release approach that has worked so well for them with iOS and apply it to the Mac.

Mountain Lion, then, feels in many ways less like OS X 10.8 than OS X 10.7.5: a smaller, more tightly focused update continuing what OS X Lion started, taking iOS’s best ideas and bringing them to Mac.

Thanks to major breakthrough features like iCloud syncing, Notification Center, Sharing, AirPlay Mirroring and more, there’s less of a distinction in Mountain Lion between the Mac and iOS than ever. But is that a good thing, and how will it change the way you use your Mac?

Email and messaging continue to be core business requirements for mobile professionals. Business messaging can also present a mobile security challenges. Ensuring communications sent over a carrier network or Wi-Fi are secure and only read by intended recipients is sensible for any company. In certain industries, secure messaging is required by law or regulation.

There are a range of ways to ensure secure messaging. One of which is TigerText, a multi-platform solution for secure messaging that meets industry-specific security and privacy require like HIPAA in the healthcare industry or SOX compliance in business/finance. TigerText offers more than just secure texting, however. The platform also includes group messaging and the ability to recall messages after they’ve been sent.

As of today, it also include Dropbox integration. That allows users to not only exchange messages securely, but also to share files securely with some attractive business and security features.

If you’ve ever jailbroken an iPhone, you should be familiar with BiteSMS, the built-in Messages replacement that delivers almost every feature you could ever want in a messages app. One of its highlights is a feature called Quick Reply, which allows you to respond to incoming messages from the home screen, the lock screen, or from within other apps using a handy popup window.

The developer behind this awesome app has now brought Quick Reply to the hugely popular WhatsApp messenger, using a new tweak that’s available now from Cydia.

Apple has put a lot of work into developing its own secure messaging platform. With Mountain Lion and the Messages app that Apple rolled out in iOS 5, Apple is setting up its iMessage platform with a lot potential advantages for consumers and business users alike. For business, the always available and secure messaging is huge. Messages and conversations can be found on an employee’s iPhone, iPad, home iMac, work MacBook Air – that’s taking the concept of RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger service to a higher level.

For consumers, the great features are the integration of non-phone devices like the iPad and iPod touch and reduced reliance on carriers for texting, which can translate to cost savings (depending on mobile carrier/plan).

While most of us still use SMS to send text messages, there’s a distinct trend in shifting to using solutions like Apple’s Message platform.

The way Apple currently handles FaceTime and iMessage across multiple devices doesn’t work. An iMessage is sent to your iPhone’s number, and it doesn’t show up in the Messages app on your iPad or the beta Messages app on your Mac. The iPhone is the only device that can be reached via iMessage or FaceTime by both a phone number and Apple ID. The iPad, iPod touch and Mac all have to use an email address. If an iMessage is sent to your iPhone’s number, it doesn’t show up on your iPad. So you have to tell your friends to use your Apple ID address for iMessage if you want it to work on all of your devices.

This is a severely flawed way of handling communication between devices, but the good news is that Apple has fixed this problem in iOS 6.

iMessages is really cool, and apparently it gives AT&T’s CEO bad dreams of happy customers because it gives us sweet little SMS messages for free. For the most part, iMessages works really well, except there are times when messages get all delayed you miss some important conversations between friends. Brian Chen at the New York Times’ and a number of other iMessage users have been experiencing frequent delays lately with their messages, but here’s a quick way to fix it.

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.

Some new jailbreak tweaks have surfaced in Cydia that allow you to open and send all kinds of files between iOS devices with iMessage. Apple’s messaging protocol can be used to send much more than simple SMS and MMS messages; you can send everything from a song to a PDF.

Attacher will let you send and receive all kinds of files with iMessage, and it includes a couple features that make it a compelling offering. A pair of jailbreak tweaks called SendAny and ReceiveAny also accomplish the same goal with a different approach. Which tweak option is best? Let’s take a closer look.