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258 'iMessage' stories February 2012 - June 2013
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iMessage was announced by Scott Forstall at the WWDC keynote in 2011. When iOS 5 was released in October, it included a version of the messages app that had iMessage built-in. In early 2012, Apple announced that a new Messages app would be included in OS X Mountain Lion which was released on July 25, 2012.

By 2012, Tim Cook announced that over 300 billion messages had been sent using iMessage. In 2016, Eddie Cue announced that 200,000 iMessages were being sent every second. Apple also announced an App Store for the platform in 2016.

When Apple announced its messaging platform, mobile carriers were caught off guard as it took over SMS technology. One of the reasons it was initially so successful is that users didn’t realize they were using something new. The only visual change was that the messages went from green to blue. The box for typing message had a faint iMessage in the box before starting a message as well.

Since its release, Google has tried multiple times to create its own messaging service similar to iMessage, but it hasn’t been able to find the same success. Apple has been applauded for including end-to-end encryption in iMessage.

We use end-to-end encryption to protect your iMessage and FaceTime conversations across all your devices. With watchOS and iOS, your messages are encrypted on your device so that they can’t be accessed without your passcode. We designed iMessage and FaceTime so that there’s no way for us to decrypt your data when it’s in transit between devices. You can choose to automatically delete your messages from your device after 30 days or a year or to keep them on your device forever.

Third-party apps that use iMessage do not have access to participants’ actual contact information or conversations. iOS provides each app with a random identifier for each participant, which is reset when the app is uninstalled. iMessage and SMS messages are backed up on iCloud for your convenience, but you can turn iCloud Backup off whenever you want. And we never store the content of FaceTime calls on any servers.

In iOS 11.4, Apple released Messages in the Cloud. If you enable it, it keeps your entire message history updated and available on all your devices. If you purchase a new device, all of your conversations will be synced over as well.

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Wishlist: 10 things Apple should, but likely won’t, announce at WWDC 2013

Avatar for Seth Weintraub Jun 9 2013 - 8:18 am PT
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We’ve got a pretty good idea of what Apple intends to give us at WWDC. Even the things we’re not so sure about seem on the radar.

But what does Apple need to do long term to tighten up the ecosystem and bring some excitement back into its hardware, software and services? I’ve got a few things…


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Some surprises we might see at WWDC 2013 next week

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jun 7 2013 - 3:45 pm PT
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(Preparations for Apple’s 2013 WWDC developer conference / Image via Nick)

There’s a lot we already know about what we’ll be seeing next week at WWDC– we’ve already brought you exclusive details on iOS 7, OS X 10.9, a MacBook refresh, Apple’s new Radio service, and much more. What else might we see Apple show off next week? Below are a couple of our best predictions based on what we think Apple is most likely to show off as well as few things we’ve been hearing:
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Chatology for Mac, Flexbits’ answer to the comical search bugs in the Mac’s Messages app

Avatar for Zach Kahn Jun 4 2013 - 11:02 am PT
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Flexibits, makers of the popular calendar app Fantastical for Mac and iPhone, have just announced their next product for the Mac. Their new app, Chatology, seeks to ease the pain of searching through conversations using Apple’s buggy Messages app.

If you haven’t tried this yourself, don’t. But often when searching on messages, the application locks up for an indeterminate amount of time. Apple doesn’t seem to be getting all of our crash/bug reports and hasn’t fixed it since its release with Mountain Lion.

https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/341979376935649281

A new page on the Flexbits website shows the above image and option to signup for their mailing list, which will include updates on Flexibit’s suite of apps as well details on when you can download Chatology.

Developer hacks iOS to route notifications through Google Glass (video)

Avatar for Mark Gurman May 22 2013 - 11:06 am PT
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An iMessage notification sent to Glass

Adam Bell (@b3ll), a well-known developer for many software platforms, has figured out a way to route all notifications from an iOS device through Google Glass. The implementation, even in its early stage, seems to work quite well. Bell notes that all notifications, such as iMessages and Tweets automatically are shown via the Google Glass interface. Video and more details below:


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Google’s new Hangouts app now available for iPhone and iPad

Avatar for Jordan Kahn May 15 2013 - 11:37 am PT
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Google just announced a new unified messaging service today that will be available across multiple platforms and now the iOS app is officially available to download on the App Store.

The free Hangouts app is available as a universal download for both iPhone and iPad and offers group conversations with photos or 850 emojis, Video calls for hanging out with up to 10 friends, alerts that are synced across devices and more.

More Hangouts awesomeness:
— View and continue your Hangouts across devices.
— Get notifications just once.  After you see an alert, it’ll be removed on other devices.
— Snooze your notifications if you’d prefer to respond later.
— See what you talked about in the past, including shared photos and your video call history.
— Keep a record of any Hangout for just a short period of time by turning history off.
— View collections of photos shared from each of your Hangouts.
— Choose from over 850 emoji to express what’s on your mind.

The Hangouts feature will also be coming to Gmail users today:
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Google announces Google Play Music ‘All Access’ streaming service, launching today for $9.99/month

Avatar for Jordan Kahn May 15 2013 - 9:56 am PT
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From 9to5Google:

Google just announced its much rumored new music service called Google Play Music “All Access” live on stage at its Google I/O event keynote presentation.

Google execs focused on showing off curated playlists but also made a note of pointing out a “radio” feature that will automatically create an endless radio station based on the song you’re currently listening to. The service will also allow users to search for a particular song or view the “playlist” of a radio station to remove unwanted songs.

Also included is a feature called “Listen Now” that will provide quick access to recently listened to songs, customized radio stations based on your preferences, and recommendations for new releases from artists you like.

The service will be available on the web, tablets, and phones through Google Play and cost users $9.99 per month with a 30 day free trial in the US. Those that sign up before the end of June will be able to get the subscription for just $7.99/month and Google said the service will land in other countries soon.

Users complain Path sending spam messages to contacts, company says it’s a feature not a bug

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Apr 30 2013 - 12:48 pm PT
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Today a number of reports are flowing in claiming that social network app Path is sending spam messages to people listed in the user’s address book. The issue apparently isn’t new with some Android users on Reddit experiencing the spam a few months back, while a growing number of users on Twitter today have complained of their contacts receiving both spam text messages and calls. The messages, as pictured right, say the user has photos to share on Path and urges the recipient to downed the free Path app.

However, Path confirmed to The Verge that the issue is actually a feature of the app that sends messages to a user’s Facebook friends during sign-up:
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Apple confirms another iMessage, FaceTime outage (Update: Fixed)

Avatar for Zac Hall Apr 12 2013 - 8:58 am PT
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Apple confirms service disruption

Update: 12:30PM ET – Apple’s status website also saying the issues are resolved

For the second time this week, Apple has confirmed that iMessage and FaceTime are experiencing hiccups, albeit nearly three hours after users first started reporting issues.

Any regular user of the service can speak for how regular of an occurrence this is, and Apple is consistently slow to confirm any service disruption.

Notably, when Apple does admit any downtime, it typically downplays the issue while our own experience and that of the good people on Twitter reflects otherwise.

https://twitter.com/kraymoney/status/322735363418365952

https://twitter.com/JoshLongman_/status/322735363158331392

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iMessage/FaceTime has been down for about a half hour, Apple just acknowledged it (Update: Fixed)

Avatar for Zac Hall Apr 9 2013 - 1:18 pm PT
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Update: 8PM ET – Just 4 short hours after we first started hearing issues, iMessage and FaceTime are back

Update: 8:45PM ET – Apple’s status website also saying the issues are resolved

As many have reported on Twitter, iMessage and FaceTime have been down for the past half hour, but Apple just updated its Services Status page. Meanwhile, Apple is aptly offering the opportunity to complete a survey regarding its online Apple Support quality.

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Internal DEA document complains it’s impossible to intercept iMessages

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Apr 4 2013 - 6:14 am PT
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The Drug Enforcement Administration has warned in a recent internal document that iMessage’s secure end-to-end encryption is preventing law enforcement from eavesdropping on suspects in criminal investigations. CNET got its hands on the document that warned “it’s ‘impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices’—even with a court order approved by a federal judge”:

The DEA’s “Intelligence Note” says that iMessage came to the attention of the agency’s San Jose, Calif., office as agents were drafting a request for a court order to perform real-time electronic surveillance under Title III of the Federal Wiretap Act. They discovered that records of text messages already obtained from Verizon Wireless were incomplete because the target of the investigation used iMessage: “It became apparent that not all text messages were being captured.”

Christopher Soghoian, a senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said yesterday that “Apple’s service is not designed to be government-proof.” “It’s much much more difficult to intercept than a telephone call or a text message” that federal agents are used to, Soghoian says. “The government would need to perform an active man-in-the-middle attack… The real issue is why the phone companies in 2013 are still delivering an unencrypted audio and text service to users. It’s disgraceful.”

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Apple confirms: iMessage and FaceTime back online

Avatar for 9to5 Staff Nov 18 2012 - 4:56 pm PT
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After a particularly long outage today, Apple says it has restored access to both iMessage and FaceTime.

9to5Mac readers first started alerting us today around 3:30PM ET. The outage lasted around four hours and was up and down for some users.

This outage was the latest in a long string of problems for Apple’s iMessages platform which seems to go down on a weekly basis.

[tweet https://twitter.com/9to5mac/status/270257763236597760]
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Apple responds to SMS vulnerability by reminding us that iMessage works better than SMS

Avatar for Seth Weintraub Aug 18 2012 - 10:34 am PT
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Engadget got a statement from Apple regarding the latest SMS iOS flaw that affects iPhone users:

Apple takes security very seriously. When using iMessage instead of SMS, addresses are verified which protects against these kinds of spoofing attacks. One of the limitations of SMS is that it allows messages to be sent with spoofed addresses to any phone, so we urge customers to be extremely careful if they’re directed to an unknown website or address over SMS.

Interesting statement from Apple that seems to throw the blame for the SMS vulnerability over to the SMS protocol. That actually might be the case, but Pod2G’s assessment is that Apple could fix it in an upcoming release.

iMessage, though it sometimes goes down for days at a time, is a good means of communication between your Apple-using buddies. However, with Apple not even at a quarter of total phone penetration, SMS is unfortunately something that still needs to be used.

Other ways to avoid the built-in SMS app vulnerabilities are to use third-party SMS applications like Google Voice.

Pod2G’s assessment of the issue below:
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Apple online store adds text message notifications for order status updates

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jul 18 2012 - 7:22 am PT
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The Apple online store went down last night for a short while. It appears Apple made some minor tweaks, including the ability to receive text message notifications on orders. Apple is now displaying the following text in several sections of the online store in at least Canada and the United States: “Now get order status updates by text message.”

Apple explained on its website that the new feature is an option during the checkout process, and it is available to the following supported carriers: Alltel, AT&T, Boost Mobile, Cricket, Nextel, Sprint, T-Mobile, U.S. Cellular, Verizon Wireless, and Virgin Mobile USA.

Apple Notifications is a text-message-based alerts service designed to keep you up-to-date on your shipment and/or pickup notification status. In addition to standard email notifications, you can also request text message updates when you’re in Checkout. The number of messages you’ll receive will vary depending on the orders you placed.

What to Expect

Once your order ships, or is available for pickup, we’ll send you a text message. The text message will include your order number and a link to online Order Status. Texts are sent between 8:00 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. in your time zone.

How to turn off text notifications:

To stop receiving text notifications, simply reply STOP to the text message. Texting HELP to 83372 will give you additional information.

(via CultofMac & AppleBitch)

Apple posts Messages Beta for the Mac on the heels of Mountain Lion announcement

Avatar for 9to5 Staff Feb 16 2012 - 5:49 am PT
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Just as we are chewing on the news that Apple is working on Mountain Lion, a major new Mac OS X release, the company published Messages Beta for the Mac, an early taste of what is coming in Mountain Lion. Certain code leaks indicated such an application could be in the works and now it is coming. The Messages application lets you send unlimited iMessages to any Mac, iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch user.

You can start an iMessage conversation on your Mac and continue it on your iOS device, and even start a FaceTime video call and bring the conversation. Messages also supports sending photos, videos, attachments, contacts, locations and more and it comes with built-in support for iMessage, AIM, Yahoo!, Google Talk and Jabber accounts. Apple noted that when you install Messages, it replaces iChat—even though iChat services will continue to work.

You can download your copy of iMessges Beta for the Mac here.


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