Apple Announces Big Change for iMessage

06/07/2022 03:53 pm EDT

Apple is instituting a change to the Messages app that users have been begging for for a long time now. the company announced iOS 16 at the World Wide Developers Conference on Monday, including new functions for iMessage. Apple users will soon be able to unsend messages or edit them after they have been sent.

Apple CEO Tim Cook shared highlights of the new mobile operating system on Monday along with other executives, including Craig Federighi, according to a report by CBS News. Federighi told the crowd that there will be "three highly requested features to Messages" in the update. He asked: "First, have you ever sent a message, only to immediately realize you didn't quite say what you intended? Well, no worries – because now, you can edit the message you just sent. So, embarrassing typos can be a thing of the past."

Along the same lines, users will now be able to undo a sent message, so if the recipient hasn't seen it yet it will simply disappear. Finally, you will now be able to manually mark a text thread as "unread," thereby reminding yourself to come back and look at it later when you have the time.

These are features that Apple users have been hoping for for a long time, and in many cases these features are already available on other messaging apps. Users have long wondered why the ubiquitous Apple messaging app lacks features available on WhatsApp, Slack and Discord, just to name a few.

The biggest caveat here is that these features will only be available on iMessages – the blue-colored texts sent between two Apple devices. This could get confusing since the Messages app is also used to send SMS texts to other cell phones. According to a report by 9 to 5 Mac, the edit and unsend functions will only be available for up to 15 minutes after a message is sent. If you use them, the app will display the word "edited" in parentheses next to the message's delivery status.

Several other announcements on Monday related to Messages, though none seemed to get social media quite as riled up. Notably, Apple is promoting a huge overhaul to its Dictation feature for transcribing voice messages. It is also integrating SharePlay into iMessage for functions like watching a movie together virtually.

Sadly, none of these features will be available until sometime this fall when iOS16 launches. That leaves time for Apple to observe the user responses to these announcements and make changes where necessary.

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