

iMessage Should Have a Dead Battery Auto-Responder  - treblig
http://benjamingilbert.net/imessage-should-have-a-dead-battery-auto-responder/

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steeve
The point is moot. iMessage as delivery notifications. If the message is not
marked as "Delivered", it means the other phone didn't get it.

But it can be spotty at times with poor data connection.

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gpmcadam
Does 'Delivered' show up when the message is received by another iOS device?
e.g. I often leave my iPad at home but still connected to iMessage, and if
that receives the messages my iPhone doesn't, wouldn't this give a false
impression of delivery to the sender?

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josho
iMessage's are sent to _all_ of your devices. I have iMessage on my mac,
iPhone & iPad. All 3 devices receive messages sent to me. That's true even if
one of the device is turned off for some period of time. Apple, did seem to go
through some growing pains where this didn't always work as above.

To answer your other question the delivered flag is set if any of your devices
receives the message.

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matthew-wegner
iMessage gets tricky when you have multiple devices.

For example, I went out of the country, but left my iPad at home (which also
receives iMessages to my phone #). Because my phone wasn't data roaming, and
my iPad was still on the network at home, iMessages _were being delivered_ to
the iPad. It basically meant anyone with an iPhone couldn't text me, because
the text message fallback wasn't triggering. I had to find wifi with my iPhone
to catch up on texts.

The "dead battery" auto-responder has the same issue. What if my iPhone
battery is dead, but I'm on a Mountain Lion MacBook and getting messages
there?

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nwh
Let's not get ahead of ourselves. The iMessage client can't keep messages in
order or search them, let alone do anything complicated like that.

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coob
Messages has a search bar at the top of the main tableview.

Message search is also built into the iOS spotlight screen (left of first home
screen).

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whalesalad
It's really unreliable and half assed. The parent commenter is a absolutely
right. iMessage is full of bugs they need to really fix them! They have done
an amazing thing though.

Sidenote: apple has the ability to mine so many conversations for data. It's
more intimate than twitter and I'd imagine more iMessages are sent each day
than tweets. If something happens anywhere in the world Apple would
theoretically be the first to know. Kinda nuts.

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seivan
End to End encryption :)

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phil
...is a feature iMessage does not offer.

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seivan
It's not? Are you 100%

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nwh
I've seen nothing to suggest that it does, just some funky key exchange for
authentication.

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almostbutnot
There are privacy concerns when you tell people about the state of another
persons device. There is also the concept of sending a message saying a
devices battery is dead "gosh iPhones always have dead batteries I keep
getting this alert from my friends". These are good intention designs but not
quite there.

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rem1313
iMessages has built in notification to the sender if the message has been
delivered to the receiver, hence the status "Delivered" or (if receiver has
opted-in) also Read status. I see no point in this feature, since the phone
could be dead for various reasons, not just battery

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k33l0r
It would be nice if the delivered indicator could be relied upon, but it seems
to report that a message has been delivered once the Apple servers have
received it, not when the destination device has received it.

This is especially noticeable under poor network conditions (I think I first
noticed it at a music festival where even regular SMS messages struggled to
get through due to network congestion).

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Terretta
Nope. It needs to hit a device to say Delivered.

For example, if the recipient is out of 3G data coverage but can fall back to
SMS, you won't get Delivered, you'll get a line across your conversation
denoting a switch to Text Message and a different color bubble.

(Several people I message are in marginal coverage areas several hours a day,
so I get to see this in action daily.)

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andrewroycarter
This doesn't make any sense at all. iMessage is now tied to my iPhone, my
iPad, an iPod Touch, two iMacs, and a Macbook Air. If my iPhone's battery
dies, how will Apple know that I'm not in front of another device capable of
getting messages?

"One potential reason that Apple wouldn’t implement this feature is that it
increases user awareness of dead iPhone batteries" I don't even

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pomajp
I usually “know” someone’s phone has died when 2 straight messages go through
as SMS, but a standard notification would be awesome.

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Pwnadog
Why not turn it around and have iMessages send a "message received"
notification when receiving a message? Have it display like a little checkmark
next to any sent message that turns green if the other phone pings back. Just
that - no read receipt like there is now, as that isn't always convenient.

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nwh
It already does, they're called read receipts.

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msh
it also have delivered receipts, they are turned on by default opposed to the
read receipts (which need to be turned on manually).

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10dpd
A simple 'read receipt' would be much better, if its not already built in,
although I suspect it is.

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treblig
Yep, it is built in, but many (including myself) disable it. It's pretty
common that I accidentally open a message, but I don't have a response / a
chance to respond yet, and I don't want the person to think I'm ignoring them.

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lostlogin
Yeah, plausible deniability. I know a work place which demands them for email.
Evil.

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SparksZilla
I like this, but can see some problems with iMessage on multiple devices.
Ignoring that, I'd love to get a push notification at ~5% battery asking me if
I'd like to put an auto-responder on.

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thegrul
It can't make any negative remarks about the battery life of any idevice, but
it could be kinda nice if it said whether or not the receivers idevice is
turned off.

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m_eiman
The problem hasn't got anything to do with delivery notifications or auto-
responders: if you need an answer right away you must use a synchronous form
of communication, e.g. voice call.

iMessage, SMS, email et al are async by design. Until you hear or see an ack
that's from the actual recipient (and not something automated by a device),
you can't be sure the message has been properly received.

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GuiA
iMessage has a "send read receipt" feature (deactivated by default).

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m_eiman
Yes, but that doesn't mean the recipient actually read it - it means that
iMessage is/has been the active application on at least one of the recipient's
devices.

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turutu
Many XMPP clients support message delivery receipts. Maybe there is also one
for iOS.

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adrr
But I use "my was battery dead" excuse when i am too lazy to respond.

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scottbartell
This is exactly what I was thinking!

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BigBalli
if it did you wouldn't be able to use it as an excuse...

