Messages - page 6

One of the great things about Messages, for me, is the “read receipt.” I know if my child has seen my messages to them, of if they’ve just been “delivered” but not read. I like it.

Some folks, though, might want to turn off this feature so they don’t give off the signal that they’ve actually seen a message. it goes a long way towards plausible deniability when things go wrong.

If you’re one of those folks, though, you might have noticed that when you upgraded to iOS 7 that–even if you have the preference for receipts toggled to OFF, you might still be sending out read receipts.

Luckily, there’s an easy fix.

I’d noticed that calendar events created from the iOS 7 Mail app now contain a clickable URL that links back to the original e-mail message, but what I didn’t know is just how rad this is. Federico “another espresso please” Viticci over at Mac Stories knows exactly how rad it is, though, because he dug in and found out that it’s not only system-wide for iOS 7, but hooks into something similar that the Mac has done for years.

It seems a lot of users who upgraded to iOS 7 last month are having issues with iMessage. Apple’s Support Communities forums are full of complaints from disgruntled iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch users who cannot send or receive iMessages anymore, and you’ll find plenty of people voicing their frustrations on Twitter, too.

Initially it seemed Apple’s servers were the problem — as they often are when iMessage has problems — but that’s not the case. Instead, it appears to be a simple bug that can be easily rectified with a quick bit of tinkering. Here’s what you need to do.

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.

Think your messages are private? Think again!

A Cult of Mac reader, asking to remain anonymous, sent in a tip about how he caught his girlfriend reading Messages on his iPhone.

Privacy is important to this fellow, but he suspected that his love was sneaking peeks at his text and iMessages.

So he took a couple of steps to catch her in the act.

Ever need to send a buddy a quick screenshot or file? How about sending a file from your iPhone to your friend on a Mac?

Getting files from one computer to another is a fairly easy task, what with email and services like Dropbox around, but I’ve been using Messages to send files to friends, family, and even myself lately.

Here’s how to do it.

In the OS X 10.8 version of Messages on the Mac, you can set the background color of your own messages, and you can set the background color, font, and font color of anyone who sends you messages.

Now, though, in OS X Mavericks, you can do all those things, plus send messages in your own choice of font, as well as let your friends send you messages with their own font choices.

Here’s how to make that happen.

Of course you know already that you can send iMessages to your iOS or OS X using friends and family via the Notification Center, because we told you that a while ago.

Did you know, however, that you can reply to iMessages sent to you in that very same Notification Center? If not, read on and learn how to do so, and how to make sure that your Mac is set up correctly to allow it to happen.

In previous versions of iOS, the date and time stamps of iMessages you sent and received were printed right in the app, above the iMessages they pertained to.

Not so in iOS 7, with only a date stamp showing up at the top of each segment of messages that come in on a particular day. If you want to know what time those messages came in or were sent, it looked as if you were out of luck.

But wait! There’s more! Turns out that you can, in fact, see a time stamp for every message in the Messages app. Here’s how to access it.

One of the coolest things about Messages is the cross-device functionality, in that you can send messages to and from your Mac and your iOS devices. I use it while at work to chat with folks who text me from their iPhone; it’s a really handy way to avoid using a tiny screen while at work, not to mention letting you keep your iPHone in a bag, instead of beeping or vibrating on your desk.

Now, though, you can send an iMessage in the Notification Center in OS X Mavericks beta. Here’s how.

Don’t forget that the OS X Mavericks beta isn’t a final version—it’s meant to be used by developers to ensure that their software will work with Apple’s latest and greatest. With that disclaimer in mind, let’s check out a new little feature in the beta.

Many apps have had access to special characters before, like iChat and Messages. You’d simply click the little smiley face, for example, and get all the fun emoticons Apple has provided.

If you wanted to type a special character in a text document, though, you’d have to remember that Option-8 is a text bullet, and Option-K is the degrees symbol, and Option-2 gives you the Trademark symbol.

Now, though, in OS X Mavericks beta, you can see visually what special characters are available to you across all applications. Here’s how.

Chatology is a brand new tool for searching Messages on the Mac without the headaches. If you’ve been experiencing bugs, random crashes, and a lack of search functionality in Apple’s chat software, then this new app is for you.

As the new Director of Human Interface, Jony Ive has gone from making beautifully beveled Macs, to redesigning iOS into a multi-layered Parallax operating system. By drawing from his deep well of hardware design brilliance, Jony brought a lot of his hardware philosophies to iOS, and the Messages app icon shows just how insanely detailed Jony can get.

As discovered by Brad Ellis, Jony made sure that the Messages icon’s corners have the same tapered edges which can be found on the iMac and other Apple products.

The difference is just a small number of pixels that most users would probably never notice, so Brad created his awesome comparison GIF so you can actually see the changes: 

Have you tried searching in Messages on the Mac? Well don’t try now unless you want to get really frustrated. Among the app’s other numerous bugs, Messages can tend to suddenly throw a tantrum whenever the search bar is invoked.

Flexibits, makers of popular iPhone calendar app Fantastical, have announced their next app: Chatology, a tool for searching Messages on the Mac.

iOS is a fantastic platform, but as it approaches its sixth birthday, it’s in desperate need of a lick of paint. If you jailbreak your devices, then you don’t need to sit and wait for Apple to administer that, because you can take the design refresh into your own hands by theming.

The only issue with that is finding a theme that’s as beautiful as the hardware it’s running on. There aren’t many out there that fit this description, but iMIUI from Xiaomi is one of them.

Viber, the popular cross-platform messaging service for smartphones, is no longer just for smartphones. The company has today launched new desktop applications that allow you to chat with friends; send stickers, emoticons, and photos; and make calls from a Mac or PC.

Popular jailbreak tweak biteSMS just got a new update that introduces a quick compose widget to your iPhone’s Notification Center. The feature promises to be a simple and convenient way to send text messages in a pinch.

LockLauncher, a handy tweak that allows you to run apps from the lock screen on jailbroken iPhones, has today been updated to add support for the iPhone 5 and iOS 6. You can download it now from Cydia’s BigBoss repository.

One of the wacky things you may notice if you’ve just gotten a new iPhone is the default double alert whenever you get a text message, whether iMessage or SMS. Why Apple has this as the default, I’m not sure, but it kept freaking me out before I figured out how to turn it off.

However, I’m willing to see that you might want the double alert, or more (shudder), and there’s a simple way to make that happen, as well.

Here’s how.

Samsung’s Android smartphones have this nifty feature that lets you quickly make calls from within contact cards and messages simply by raising the device to your ear. And thanks to a new tweak called RaiseToCall, you can now get the same feature on your jailbroken iPhone.

QuickPhoto is a new tweak for jailbroken iPhones that brings the camera roll to your keyboard for super speedy image uploading. Once installed, you have one-touch access to all the photos you’ve taken on your device — just hit the same globe key you would use to access an international keyboard.

Now that you’ve jailbroken your iOS device running iOS 6, it’s time to check out some tweaks and apps in Cydia, the jailbreak alternative to the App Store. There’s a lot of stuff to try in Cydia, and sometimes it can be hard to weed out of the very best tweaks from the rest.

We’ve gathered some jailbreak tweaks you need to take a look at on iOS 6:

One of the wacky things you may notice if you’ve just gotten a new iPhone is the default double alert whenever you get a text message, whether iMessage or SMS. Why Apple has this as the default, I’m not sure, but it kept freaking me out before I figured out how to turn it off.

However, I’m willing to see that you might want the double alert, or more (shudder), and there’s a simple way to make that happen, as well.

Here’s how.

If you’re anything like me, you use the Messages app in OS X Mountain Lion to keep chatting with those iMessage-happy iOS users in your group of friends when you’re at your computer. Nothing’s more annoying than having to pick up my iPhone while I’m on my Mac, just to text someone back.

With the OS X Messages app, I can just chat with them as if they were on any other instant message client, using the full keyboard on my app instead of the tiny one on my iPhone. Sometimes, though, friends might send along a web link. When I don’t want to have to click through to see it in Safari or Chrome, I preview it right in Messages.

Apple has just sent out the following Email to OS X Lion users, alerting them that the Messages Beta program for OS X Lion will end on December 14th. Messages for Mac, originally launched as a beta application before the release of OS X Mountain Lion, was available for free to users until it officially launched as part of 10.8 in summer.