Messages

Apple reiterates it can’t read your iMessages even if it wanted to

Christian Zibreg ∙ October 18, 2013

Yesterday's report by Quarkslab, a penetration testing company, has caused quite a stir among privacy watchers as iOS hacker Pod2g and Quarkslab's team of researchers claimed at the Hack the Box conference in Kuala Lumpur they had successfully intercepted iMessage exchanges, indicating Apple has access to the public keys used to encrypt communication.

Given the ongoing NSA scare, Apple was quick to go on the record to dispute the claim, arguing end-to-end encryption employed to protect eavesdropping on iMessages communication is so secure that even the company itself cannot decrypt it...

Researchers claim Apple has the ability to access encrypted iMessages

Cody Lee ∙ October 17, 2013

Following the June report claiming that several tech companies were actively participating in the NSA's PRISM data mining program, Apple issued a statement regarding government information requests and user privacy.

In the statement, the company suggested it was unable to access or decrypt iMessage messages, alleviating fears that Apple could monitor those conversations. But according to a team of researchers, that may not be the case...

Apple says it’s aware of iMessage issue and is working on a fix

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

Since the release of iOS 7 last month, users have been complaining of issues activating iMessage. What's more, out of those who have been able to activate the service, some have been experiencing problems sending and receiving messages.

Well the good news is, Apple is aware of a glitch in the new firmware that is causing the disruption of iMessage activity and is working on it. The company tells The Wall Street Journal a fix will be available in an upcoming software update...

Anemo: a minimalistic quick reply tool for texters

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

Anemo — the quick reply tweak that we previewed some time back — is now available on Cydia. It's been a long time coming, but for those of you desperate for a simple quick reply solution, the wait was well worth it.

Instead of a full fledged Message app replacement, Anemo take a more anemic approach. Using existing banner notifications, it provides a simple, yet extremely handy quick reply solution for jailbroken iOS users.

Preview: Anemo

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

Anemo is an upcoming tweak that brings a sleek looking Quick Reply feature to the stock Messages app. The tweak, which has been in its conceptual stages for quite some time, is a collaboration between iOS developer, John Corbett, and renowned iOS designer, Sentry.

Anemo was initially featured by Sentry in its conceptual stages via a post on The Verge's forums. Afterwards, it quickly rose to popularity, amassing over 200 comments from interested users.

Today, I was able to go hands-on with a real working beta copy of Anemo. What I found was a tweak that lived up to its initial concept laid out almost a year earlier. Check inside for my first hands-on demo with Anemo.

Preview: iRealSMS beta with iOS 7 inspired QuickReply

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 14, 2018

The developer of iRealSMS contacted us recently regarding a new upcoming feature to its popular Messages app alternative. iRealSMS 3.0.6 brings a new iOS 7 inspired QuickReply theme to the fold, and it looks pretty interesting. Once QuickReply makes its way to iOS via an iOS 7 jailbreak, we imagine that this is similar to how it'd look. What say you? Check out our brief video preview after the jump.

Massive outage affects one in three iMessage users

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 9, 2013

We thought Apple by now has figured its customers have come to expect better than this, but here we go again: in a massive outage earlier today, the company's messaging service for iOS and Mac devices went offline for nearly one-third of its installed user base, by Apple's own admission.

Now, I know iCloud now has more than 300 million accounts (Tim Cook labeled it “the fastest growing cloud service ever” at WWDC last month). Likewise, I'm aware that with 800 billion iMessages sent and more than 7.5 trillion push notifications received, Apple no doubt has the scale and computing power to drive iMessage.

But something seems to be amiss here. The more I think of it, the more I tend to be bothered by the frequency and sheer reach of these outages. At the very least, I'm beginning to question Apple's ability to cope with such an exponential growth of its cloud service...

Messages app gets timestamps, contact photos, and other UI enhancements in iOS 7 beta 2

Cody Lee ∙ June 24, 2013

Earlier today, Apple released the second beta of its next-generation mobile operating system, iOS 7, to developers. The update comes exactly two weeks after the original beta of iOS 7 was released, and brings with it a number of new features and improvements.

Thus far we've covered the revamped Voice Memos app and new Siri voices, and now we're going to talk about the different changes in the stock Messages app. Apple has added contact photos to group conversation threads and a few other UI enhancements...

A closer look at Messages in iOS 7

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 27, 2013

Messaging is arguably one of the most oft-used features of mobile devices. And with folks overwhelmingly embracing services like WhatsApp, little wonder instant messaging has overtaken traditional SMS by volume. The October 2011 iMessage unveiling signaled an era of frictionless communication between Apple device owners, made convenient by blurring the line between SMS and IM.

iOS 7 elevates that experience by making it prettier while implementing a few evolutionary improvements. That said, the iOS 7 Messages app is nonetheless a pretty big departure from iOS 6. But don't worry - iDB has you covered...