Learn how to send an instant message on your iPhone. Tap the Messaging Icon with your finger. To compose a new message, tap the New Text icon in the upper-right hand corner. Enter a phone number or a name from your contact list into the "To:" field. Type in text message using ...more
In this quick video tutorial, you'll learn how to hide SMS text message preview on your iPhone. It is recommended that you reboot your iPhone after completing the steps in the tutorial.
Deleting text messages on your iPhone may seem like a pretty simple task, but it's those really simple tasks that usually end up causing headaches later on. Data can stick around, even if you asked it not to, so there's always a slight chance that embarrassing and incriminatin ...more
This video demonstrates how to send and receive text messages on your iPhone. From the people who brought you the Dummies instructional book series, brings you the same non-intimidating guides in video form. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to send and receive text messa ...more
Brian Tong shows you how to avoid awkward text message situations on the iPhone and Android platforms.
In this video one of the ultimate iPhone hackers, Jonathan A. Zdziarsk, demonstrates how to use a forensics toolkit to recover deleted text messages on an iPhone. But wait - there's more! Not only can you access text messages, but almost any other data on an iPhone as well. We ...more
One of the best reasons to enter Apple's ecosystem is iMessage, where you can communicate more securely with other Apple users and send and receive chats across all of your connected iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac devices. While those blue bubble conversations sync across d ...more
Watch this tutorial video to learn how to use the AIM application on the iPhone to send text messages that don't count against your plan's limit. This how-to video is good for new iPhone owners who want to send free text messages on their iPhone.
If you're among the throng of Apple iPhone users to refuse to pay $5 for a monthly SMS allowance, then each text message you receive, whether you like it or not, will run you $0.20. In this how-to, Gary Rosenzweig shows you how to prevent unwanted text messages by turning off ...more
Whether you're at work or in class, there are times when using your phone is unacceptable, regardless of that subtle yet sudden twitch in your arm that arises every time you hear the vibration of a text message. To combat being seen, addicted text messagers have devised ways ...more
It took all the way until firmware version 4.2 for Apple to add a function to the iPhone that's been present on other phones for years: the ability to set custom ringtones / sounds for text messages from different contacts. This video will show you how quick and easy it is to ...more
Trying to get rid of an ex or clingy friend? Just want to keep telemarketers from calling you all the time? You can use the iPhone app iBlacklist (for jailbroken iPhones) to create a list of blocked calls for your iPhone. Blacklisted phone numbers will not be able to send you ...more
Texting can be difficult sometimes. When you're browsing the web or playing a game on your iPhone and need to respond to text message real quick, you have to exit your current app to do so. Not exactly efficient, especially if a quick "K" is all you need to say. However, if y ...more
With iOS 7, Apple is finally fighting back against spam, offering the option to block certain phone numbers from sending you text messages or iMessages (plus, phone calls and FaceTime too). With this new feature, you can block telemarketers, spammers, and their ilk from spamm ...more
Texting something as simple as "What up, bruh?" can be transformed into something way more baller by adding emojis, emoticons, GIFs, and textspeak. Some people would even argue that texting is a form of art, similar to Shakespearean sonnets, but it still has a ways to go if yo ...more
This clip will introduce you to an app that will allow you to send free SMS and MMS messages to your friends' cell phones. Whether you're the proud owner of an Apple iPhone 4G or perhaps just considering picking one up second hand, you're sure to benefit from this free video t ...more
NSA aside, Apple makes it difficult for users to extract and download text messages from their iPhones onto a computer. For whatever reason (legal, devious, neurotic, etc), we've all found a time where we'd like to save backups of certain meaningful, important, or perhaps incr ...more
Ever since iOS 8, Apple's quick reply feature had made it easy to respond to messages without leaving the lock screen or whatever app you're currently in, but you can't utilize all of Messages features when responding this way. You can't add photos, use iMessage apps, record a ...more
The subject line is a crucial part of an email, but you don't see it very often in texts. That's mostly because many people don't even know it can be done, and even if they do, why would they use it? Just like with emails, subject lines can make iMessages and SMS texts seem mo ...more
Next to spam calls, few things are more annoying than being inundated with spam, scam, and smishing texts. Your iPhone's Messages app should be a place for your friends and family to stay in touch, not a minefield of phishing attacks, malicious links, and viruses. Luckily, the ...more
We've been able to mark all or individual unread conversations as read in Apple's Messages app since iOS 8. Eight years later, Apple is finally letting us mark individual text and iMessage chats as unread. Try to remember how many times you opened a new message without replyi ...more
Sick of the default tones your iPhone or iPod Touch has for your text/SMS/message tones? Change your iPhone message tone, and get customized tones for your text message alerts. You will first need to SSH into your iPhone or iPod Touch, which you can learn how to do by going h ...more
If you have T-Mobile and haven't quite figured out how to get MMS working with it on the iPhone, check out this video. This tutorial will cover activating the iPhones original MMS feature to work with t-mobile. This feature also allows you to share your iphones internet connec ...more
WhatsApp may be one of the most popular mobile messaging services around since it's multi-platform, but if most of your family and friends use iPads and iPhones, there's no need to go beyond the stock Messages app. Except, it's so damn boring and slow. You can't really custom ...more
If your iPhone is rebooting or your Messages app is constantly crashing, you might be the victim of an iOS exploit or just a buggy software update. While one problem sounds worse than the other, they both can get annoying real quick when you can't send any messages or even rea ...more
Security researcher and iPhone hacker pod2g has brought attention to a flaw in Apple's iOS that allows the user to change the reply address of an SMS message. This bug has been a part of the iPhone's SMS since the first iPhone in 2007, but Apple has yet to address it. Basicall ...more
The very first text message was sent on December 3rd, 1992 by Neil Papworth, an engineer for Vodafone, and it simply said "Merry Christmas." He may have jumped the gun on the whole Christmas thing, but you trying coming up with the first text message in history! Today, there ...more
In the "Do Not Disturb" menu in your iPhone's settings, you can choose to allow phone calls from everyone, your favorites, or specific groups. However, this does not apply to text messages, only phone calls, so there's no way to get vibration or sound alert for messages from s ...more
Want to send text messages, but don't want your recipient to know they're from you? You can use a website called AnonText.com, which lets you send anonymized text messages to any cell phone number. Use your computer, or, if you have a smartphone (like an iPhone, Droid HTC Evo) ...more
Apple took great strides to enhance Accessibility features on iOS 7 for low-vision users, adding button shapes, dark colors, bold keyboard text, and more. With iOS 8, Apple looks to continue their run at making life easier for the optically impaired. Zoom, the built-in magnif ...more
Ah, the dreaded "green bubble" group chat. All it takes is one non-iPhone contact to turn an entire thread from iMessage paradise to SMS slog. Normally, it isn't that bad since the group chat still functions. However, sometimes, you end up getting messages individually instead ...more
ShapeWriter is the iPhone version of Swype. With this app you can type texts extremely fast without ever lifting your finger off the keypad! In this tutorial, learn all about how to type at the speed of light using ShapeWriter and send messages so fast you'll wonder why you ev ...more
Fairly recently Apple introduced Multimedia Messaging on the iPhone and iPod touch, allowing people to send pictures and other media through text messages. What does this mean for users? Well, if you want to take a picture of yourself eating a hamburger and then send it to you ...more
GIFs are awesome, but GIFing from your keyboard is some next-level stuff, and Apple knows this. That's why they've included a way to find and send GIFs in Messages from the stock iOS 10 keyboard. However, iOS 10 is not out for the public just yet, so if you want to easily send ...more
With the Group Text app, you can easily set up a distribution list so you can send out text messages to large numbers of people at once. You can also set up form templates, which are useful if you tend to send out a similar text message each time. This short tutorial shows you ...more
On a computer, you have keyboard shortcuts like cmd+b and ctrl+i to bold, italicize, or underline text. But how exactly do you this on your iPhone? Easy! Double-tap a word to highlight it and drag the indicators to select multiple words if you want. Then, a menu will pop up. ...more
So, you undid something you typed on your iPhone. Maybe you used the new gesture in iOS 13 to do so. Maybe you shook your iPhone, on purpose or accidentally, to trigger the traditional undo method. Either way, you want your text back, or to redo your edit, and you aren't sure ...more
In Messages, it's pretty hard to miss the timestamps that appear on top of more recent texts, iMessages, or files. But if you want to view the exact times for each text, you'll need to know about a hidden gesture. Don't Miss: There's a Faster Way to Open an App's Settings on ...more
I'm a textaholic. One of the problems with being a textaholic is that your device just can't keep up with you. I tend to text multiple people at the same time, and switching back and forth between conversations on my iPhone is extremely tedious. Any time I want to enter a new ...more
For most people, the font that Apple uses in iOS is just perfect, but some of you may think it's too big while others with poor vision may have a hard time reading it. Whether you're having a hard time seeing text on your iPhone or just want something different, there are actu ...more
If you haven't noticed yet, there are a lot of new features hiding in your iPhone's Messages app, and some of them are things users have been requesting for a long time. While iMessage is getting a lot of attention by letting us edit and unsend messages, it's only just the sta ...more
When iOS 14 came out, Apple released Translate, an app for translating voice and text between several languages (even within Safari). Unfortunately, it's not as comprehensive as some third-party apps or even Siri. That's why Apple uses Microsoft's translation services within S ...more
There's a lot you can customize on your iPhone's Lock Screen — wallpapers and photos, widgets, the display mode, notifications, and even the time's font and color. But there's another feature that lets you add custom text for whatever you want, whether it's an inspiring quote, ...more
Sometimes incorrectly referred to as "iMessage," the Messages app is where iPhone owners go to chat with iOS users across the world. Apple has made some significant improvements to the messaging app with its iOS 12 update for iPhone. If you're interested to see how your Messag ...more
Every model iPhone since the 6s has boasted a 12-megapixel rear camera. You can take some pretty spectacular, professional-looking photos with it, especially on devices that have more than one rear lens. But the file size of each photo can become a problem when sending as an i ...more
There are plenty of options and shortcuts available on the iPhone, and one notable feature is the ability to copy, cut and paste text or images, just like you would on a normal computer. So how do you do it? Best Buy has answers. The Best Buy Mobile team explains how simple it ...more
When iOS starts barking at you that you've run out of iCloud or iPhone storage, a quick trip to your settings to see what the culprit is may show that Messages is one of the worst offenders. But if deleting message after message doesn't free up your storage much, it's likely b ...more
Message effects in iMessage lets you add a touch of flair to otherwise bland communications. With the feature, you can complement a birthday wish with a stream of balloons, send a congratulatory text along with a shower of confetti, or make the chat bubble slam itself in the t ...more
Text bombing isn't a very nice thing to do, and sucks for whoever you're doing it to, but it's certainly fun for you! Annoy the hell out of a frenemy, or simply pass the time in your boring Biology class with affably evil fun, by spaming your friend's text inbox with loads of ...more
As it is right now in iOS 7, there is no quick way to delete all of your message threads in the Messages app at the same time. They can only be deleted one by one. If you followed our guide on jailbreaking, you could add a "delete all" option, but this is no longer necessary w ...more
If you're a fan of sending audio messages on your iPhone, you might be disappointed when tapping the microphone button in the Messages app on an Apple Watch. You'll see it when crafting a message, but it won't send any audio because it's for Dictation, which turns your speech ...more
Apple hasn't refreshed its text tones on iPhones since iOS 7. That's six years of the same sounds. And while text tones like Bamboo and Hello have undoubtedly aged like fine wine, that's still too long to live with the same old sounds day after day. Let's take matters into our ...more
Highlight text, tap "Copy," open the app to paste the text into, long-press or double-tap where you want it, and hit "Paste." That's probably what you do when you need to copy text from one location to paste into another on your iPhone. It's a tried-and-true method, but there' ...more
If you're new to Android phones, one of the first things you've probably noticed is how notification alerts differs from Apple devices, especially in regards to getting a text message. When you receive a text on an iPhone, the display turns on and shows you a popup notificati ...more
You don't need to delete an entire thread in the Messages app to get rid of a couple of texts on your iPhone. With a few taps, you can remove unwanted iMessages and texts, as well as storage-hungry photos and videos, to de-clutter a conversation. And in iOS 13, the process is ...more
Every time Apple releases a new product or software update, people quickly figure out exploits in order to bypass the lock screen without having to type in the passcode. It happened last year in iOS 6, so it's not surprising that it happened again in iOS 7. This time, users w ...more
Whenever you need to digitally share large bodies of real-world text, you'd likely show a photo of it or manually type everything into the document or chat. But iOS 15 has a much better way for your iPhone. Apple introduced its new system-wide OCR (optical character recogniti ...more
Quickly jotting down grocery lists, recommended books, phone numbers, and addresses, among other things, has been a pretty straightforward process on an iPad or iPhone. Through the Notes app, you can enter information and have it seamlessly synced across all of your iOS device ...more
There's really nothing safe about transmitting sensitive information electronically, but even if it gets there safely without being seen by prying eyes, there's no guarantee what happens to it once it reaches its destination. And let's face it, there are some things that you j ...more
If you're an iPhone user, iMessage is great for cutting down on SMS costs from your carrier, but it doesn't always work right away. If there are no available Wi-Fi networks around to use, iMessage will attempt to send it over your cellular data, but if you're also in a bad se ...more