

Messages.app gets cross-device notifications just right - efields
http://ericdfields.com/2012/02/16/messages.app-gets-notification-behvaior-just-right/
TL;DR:<p>When typing in Messages.app, iCloud knows your in Messages.app. When typing on the iPad, iCloud knows your on the iPad. When you're engaged in a conversation on one device, the other devices do not get notified of new messages. This avoids cross-device notification flares currently experienced by calendar alerts, which makes for an especially noisey 9:55 AM for me.<p>Now say you're working, working, working and Messages.app is out of focus. At this point, iCloud doesn't know what you're up to. A new message comes in. Since iCloud doesn't know what you've done since the conversation stopped it notifies all your devices.<p>You're still in OS X so you reply to the message via Messages.app. Now you've got notifications to dismiss on your iOS devices, right? Total first-world bummer, right? Nope: iCloud dismisses the notifications across devices once the conversation picks up again.<p>No extra X-ing out of things. No burnt seconds of your life. Just gets rid of them because it knows you've started talking again.
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pkulak
That's nice and all, except that I can't add my phone number to my Messages
account, so anyone with a mobile devise can only send messages to my phone.
Unless they sent a "text" to my email address, which I'm sure people do all
the time.

