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Posts tagged with "iMessage"

iOS 6: Messages Now Automatically Selects Last-Used International Keyboard For Each Contact

I like to think that sometimes Apple takes a look at the crazy ideas people share about iOS and OS X on Twitter, and picks a couple that they think could be neat additions to the OSes.

In April, I tweeted the following idea:

iMessage should be able of automatically switching international keyboards based on the recipient’s language.

The idea came from the fact that I’m constantly switching between the Italian and English keyboards on my devices. For most of my online communications, I use the English keyboard; for my Italian friends, family members, and acquaintances, I obviously use the Italian one. Wouldn’t it be neat if iOS could remember the last keyboard used with a contact, so that you wouldn’t have to switch keyboards every time?

Like I said, I like to think sometimes Apple listens. As @SiVola told me earlier today on Twitter, the Messages app of iOS 6 is now capable of automatically selecting an international keyboard based on the last one you used in a conversation. So, for instance, when I open a conversation with Chris, the English keyboard will be the active one; when I text my girlfriend, the Italian one will be automatically selected. No need to switch using the “globe” icon.

I tested this with various keyboards on iOS 6, and I can confirm it works. I tested on the latest version of iOS 5 to make sure as well – this is new to iOS 6 (and I hope it’s not a bug!); in my tests, it took 1-2 sent messages for iOS to “remember” the correct keyboard to use. Furthermore, Apple implemented this functionality in a way that it won’t affect the keyboard you have selected at a system-wide level: after I’ve sent a text to my girlfriend, I can open Tweetbot, and the keyboard will be in English just like I left it.

Of all the minor additions and refinements of iOS 6, this is now my favorite one. It’s the kind of detail that, to me, makes the experience more natural and fast without complicating my workflow with new menus or options to learn.

Perhaps Apple didn’t read my tweet. Or maybe someone did. Whatever the story is – thanks for this feature, iOS team.

Tip: Handle iMessage Notification Overload with Contact Settings

Since Apple released a public beta of Messages for Mac, we’ve been having a bit of a notification overload here at MacStories HQ. See, ever since iMessage was released with iOS 5, we’ve had our own group message with everyone on the MacStories team – it was a portable water cooler, where we could chat about random things, share silly pictures and even co-ordinate things for the site, even when we were out and about. We used it quite frequently, but things turned for the worse last week when we all got that Messages for Mac beta. What might have been 10 messages in a given time period, suddenly morphed into 50 messages because of the convenience of having iMessage just a click way on our Macs. Things were becoming chaotic and quite distracting, Don had even turned off vibrations — meaning he got no notification for any message, from anyone.

We didn’t want to give up on using Messages for Mac, and it was probably going to be a hard task to change our messaging behaviours to limit the number of messages sent, but it was clear this week that we had to do something.

Fortunately, we think we have found a solution. In iOS, Apple includes the ability to change the text tone and ringtone on a per-contact basis. What we did for everyone in the MacStories team, was to change the text tone to “None”. You can do this by going into the Contacts app, selecting a contact and tapping the ‘Edit’ button and scrolling to “text tone”.

This now means regardless of whether your phone is on Silent or not, you will not get any noise or vibration to alert you to the new message. There are two downsides to this ‘workaround’: the first is that you will still get the notification bar flipping down from the top of your screen. The second problem, which could be a deal breaker for some, is that any messages from that person will not cause a vibration or text tone – important to remember if they are a participant in a few of your group message threads.

There should be another way…

Whilst the ability to change the text tone (and ringtone) on a per-contact basis is really cool (and can be used for a number of other purposes), perhaps there should be another way to control message notifications differently – especially now that iMessage is bundled in iChat, and may lead to an increased number of messages sent to iOS devices. Specifically I’m talking about muting specific message conversations. This would allow me to mute the message thread that has all of the MacStories members, but still receive notifications from Federico, in case he urgently wanted me to cover something.

Apple could easily implement the option inside the Messages app, simply displaying a mute icon next to each message thread when in the ‘Edit’ mode. Just like changing the text tone on a per-contact basis, this power-user option wouldn’t make the UI messy, because it would only appear in the ‘Edit’ screen. That way, users could choose between completely muting on a per-contact basis or on a per-message thread basis – all whilst still receiving notifications for your other messages.

“iChat for iOS” Rumors Revived With New Code Strings Found

In the past few years, Apple has been rumored several times to be building a mobile version of iChat – its desktop IM communication tool – for the iPhone and iPad. And in spite of the iMessage protocol being essentially a stripped-down version of iChat for iOS users with typing indicators, attachments and even new features like read and delivery receipts, speculation has always pointed at Apple as being developing a full-featured iChat app for iOS to integrate with IM services like AIM and Jabber, just as iChat on OS X.

New code strings found by developer John Heaton inside iOS 5 (via TUAW) are bringing new life to the mobile iChat rumors. But unlike previous speculation, this code seems to indicate Apple may integrate iChat functions with its existing Phone and Messages apps. Speculation on the “facetimeService”, “aimService” and “iMessageService” strings suggests typical IM functions like text and video chat might as well live into a single existing app, rather than be scattered around the system with standalone applications. The Messages app for iOS, in fact, already integrates regular SMS and iMessage, photo and video attachments and group messaging. On the Mac, Apple was rumored to be integrating iMessage into iChat, rather than building a dedicated iMessage app. Putting all the rumors together, could this be an indication of a unified, cross-platform and integrated Messages app coming soon to iOS and OS X with iChat and iMessage functionalities?

Code strings aren’t the most reliable indicators of new features to come, as Apple often likes to bury functionalities in code and hide them from public release, even when they’re fully working and seemingly ready to go. Speculation on iChat for iOS has been growing strong lately especially after the release of iMessage, and many think it’d only make sense for Apple to least extend iMessage’s features to the desktop.

Free and Integrated

Impressive milestone reached by WhatsApp, a free cross-platform messaging solution for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones: [via Ben Brooks]

Coinciding with our planet crossing the 7 billion population mark this week, last week WhatsApp crossed its own milestone for the first time by sending just over 1 billion messages in a single day. Similar to the awe we feel that our planet will now hold over 7 billion people, all of us at WhatsApp are extremely humbled and excited about the future.

I’ve been using WhatsApp for quite some time to communicate for free – even though I have a pretty good text messaging plan with my carrier – with my girlfriend and some close, non-tech savvy friends (who, however, are tech savvy enough to buy apps). WhatsApp sends free messages, but it’s a $0.99 app on the App Store. Ever since the release of iOS 5, I’ve deleted WhatsApp from my iPhone because my girlfriend and those friends have upgraded their iPhones to iOS 5, thus getting the benefits of iMessage.

I have many friends who don’t use and don’t even like iPhones. But going through my Address Book today – trying to figure out how many people are using iMessage – it’s amazing to see how every iPhone user I know has upgraded to iOS 5, and how other people I didn’t know had iPhones (or iPads, or iPods) are now “turning blue” when creating a new message. Put simply: there’s a lot of iMessage going on in my Address Book.

I’m sure WhatsApp will continue to prosper, add features and bet on its cross-platform nature. Keep in mind that BlackBerry users already have BBM, iOS users have iMessage, and Google-loving Android folks are probably using the native Google+ app for some occasional free messaging. Tools like WhatsApp – and WhatsApp is admittedly the most popular “third-party free messaging app” out there – clearly still have a market when it comes to cross-platform. They’re great if you message with a lot of friends using different phones.

But I’m thinking about people who know their friends are using iPhones, and engage in conversations with them on a daily basis. Free, native and integrated beats “free and third-party” any time for the majority of users when it comes to iOS-to-iOS communication. And it’s not like iOS-to-iOS messaging is a rare scenario nowadays, with over 250 million iOS devices out there and quite possibly a large percentage of them being iOS 5-enabled (iOS 5 runs on the older iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 3rd and 4th generation). iMessage works on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. It’s free and supports text and media. Apple has got a few minor issues to iron out, but there’s no doubt the system has been working well for most users since its release two weeks ago. This should explain my friends’ excitement in upgrading to iOS 5, and my surprise in discovering several new iMessage users in my Address Book.

There’s difference between “free and third-party” and “free and integrated”: whereas free services may have a big initial bang but often fail to make real money in the long term, Apple can leverage free iMessages – integrated in the native messaging experience – to sell more devices. iMessage is just one of the features that will make people think “Maybe I should get an iPhone” – but it’s a powerful one. “Free messages between iPhone users” is something even my mom immediately understood.

Frictionless integration. Let’s check back on third-party messaging apps in six months.

iOS 5: iMessage

With today’s release of iOS 5, Apple has added a significant new feature to their Messages app with the introduction of iMessage. Seamlessly integrating into the existing Messages application, iMessage is a new service from Apple that acts as a replacement for the traditional text message service that comes with mobile phones.

In actual fact, a more accurate description of the Messages app with iMessage on iOS 5 would be that it improves on the traditional text messaging service whilst maintaining compatibility with it. The new iMessage service works by associating a person with an Apple ID - rather than a particular device or SIM card as the traditional text message service does. This is one of iMessage’s advantages, you are not restricted to a single device and you can now use your iPad or iPod touch (and hopefully Mac soon) for receiving and sending messages to other people.

Jump the break to read the rest of our iMessage overview.
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iMessage for OS X To Be Integrated with iChat?

According a series of code strings found by MacRumors in the current version of iChat for OS X Lion, Apple may be building support for the new messaging system first announced at WWDC for iOS 5 devices inside its IM desktop application. The properties found in iChat’s code refer to “read” and “delivery” receipts, two iMessage features that inform users when a message has been read or simply delivered to another device, respectively. These code strings can’t be found in earlier versions of iChat, apparently, and MacRumors believes they can relate to iMessage support being built inside iChat for Lion.

The “timeDelivered” and “timeRead’ fields indicate the tracking of delivery and read receipts for instant messages. These features, however, are not supported in any of iChat’s native messaging protocols, while the same features are offered in Apple’s iMessage protocol. These properties were also not present in previous versions of iChat prior to OS X Lion. We believe the only reason Apple would have added these properties was to build in cross compatibility with their new iMessage protocol.

Ever since its introduction in June, many have wondered whether Apple could support iMessage, a free messaging protocol for iOS devices, on the desktop as well, allowing iOS users to send text messages to Mac users in their Address Book, and vice versa. Unlike FaceTime, iMessage works on both WiFi and 3G, but similarly to Apple’s video-calling solution it’s completely free of charge and works with email addresses and phone numbers – if an iOS user is already in your Address Book and he’s using the same phone number or email, iMessage will work. The service will be iOS 5-only when it launches this Fall, and Apple hasn’t revealed plans for OS X or Windows versions yet. iMessage has been compared to other free messaging solutions, like RIM’s BlackBerry Messenger, or Google’s Huddle.

A few code strings are no confirmation of Apple’s plans to build iMessage for Mac, but if history is of any indication, it would make sense for Apple to support its new app on multiple platforms. Whereas iChat as an app is still nowhere to be seen on iOS, FaceTime as a service was ported to the OS X and later built into every new Mac. For this reason, many are speculating iMessage could follow a similar trend, perhaps as a standalone app, or a service plugin for iChat.

In the past months, a number of fan-made mockups have tried to imagine what an hypothetical iMessage for Mac would look like. Just like the theories floating around, some imagined the service being supported in existing apps like iChat or Mail, others created videos showing iMessage working as a separate app for effortless Mac-iOS communication. Below, we’re embedding an iMessage concept by Jan-Michael Cart.

iMessage is currently available for iOS 5 beta testers, and it’ll publicly launch with iOS 5 and iCloud this Fall.
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OS X Lion Concept: iMessage App

Ever since Apple unveiled iMessage for iOS 5, its new universal messaging protocol to send free text messages, videos and pictures to other iOS users, many have wondered whether the new app would be integrated with the Mac as well, perhaps in a new version of iChat. iMessage for iOS brings some new functionalities like delivery and read receipts in real-time, as well as sync and Messages.app integration, but it resembles the desktop iChat in the way it visualizes new messages, or lets you see when a person is typing. With the upcoming iCloud integration in OS X Lion, launching this Fall and available right now to developers for testing as a beta add-on, there is the possibility Apple will release a standalone iMessage app for Mac in the Mac App Store once iCloud is available for all. Just like they did with FaceTime, the app could be sold for $0.99 in the Store, and pre-installed by default on new systems.

Based on this kind of speculation, designer Jan-Michael Cart, creator of other iOS 5 concepts we posted ahead of WWDC, has come up with an interesting idea for iMessage on OS X Lion. The messaging protocol could have its own desktop app powered by real-time notifications, bounce on the Dock upon receiving new messages, and have a Mail-like toolbar for composing new messages and search among existing ones. We imagine having a desktop iMessage app could mean users would be able to rely on system-wide integration with Services to send any text to iMessage, as well as start a new FaceTime session from a contact in iMessage or the Address Book.

The concept video is interesting and we have embedded it after the break. iMessages are currently enabled in the iOS 5 betas for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, but some code strings found in the latest Lion developer preview suggest Apple might be working on a desktop counterpart to launch later this year.
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Apple Unveils iMessage For iOS 5

A new service to hit iOS 5 is iMessage, a service that will allow any user on an iOS 5 device to send text, photos, videos, contacts and more to any other iOS 5 user. It’ll work fine regardless of whether they are using an iPhone, iPad, iPad Touch or even a mixture of those devices.

Our customers have been asking us for a new messaging solution. We’re launching a service that works for all iOS 5 customers

iMessages has support for delivery receipts, optionally read receipts, typing notifications and all messages will be pushed to all devices you own, “so that you can pick up where you left off”. It’ll work on 3G and WiFi and everything will be encrypted.