iMessage

VirnetX seeking to extract $532 million from Apple in patent infringement retrial

Patent holding firm VirnetX yesterday told a federal jury that Apple should be slapped with a $532 million fine over an alleged patent infringement pertaining to FaceTime, iMessage and VPN technologies used in its products, which is nearly 45 percent higher than an initial damages award vacated last year.

According to Bloomberg, the notorious patent troll “keeps moving the boundary, asking for more and more and more,” said Apple’s lawyer.

How to bulk delete attachments from the Messages app on iOS

iPhone mockup showing how to delete many message attachments at once

Apple's Messages app for iOS is capable of not only sending and receiving texts in the form of iMessages or SMS, but it can also send and receive files, which are known as attachments. Over time, attachments add up. This takes up valuable storage space on your device and keeps a paper trail of everything you've sent and received to one another.

Here, we'll show you how you can easily bulk delete attachments from a conversation in the Messages app without deleting the entire conversation.

Federal judge dismisses iMessage lawsuit over undelivered texts to Android phones

A lawsuit centered on an iMessage issue which turned former iPhone owners' phone numbers into a black hole for text messages after making a switch to Android has been tossed out of the window by United States District Judge Lucy H. Koh, Business Insider reported this morning.

The lawsuit alleged that Apple's messaging system interfered with the delivery of texts, going as far as to suggest that Apple wiretapped those users by intercepting, and then failing to deliver, text messages sent from an iPhone to an Android phone.

SwitchService: a tweak that lets you quickly toggle between iMessage and SMS messages

BiteSMS was a jailbreak app that acted as an outright replacement for the stock Messages app. It was extremely popular due to the bevy of different features that it brought to the table. One such feature was the ability to quickly switch between sending messages as iMessages or standard SMS messages.

Sadly, BiteSMS has been defunct for some time now, and with it, many of the features that made it so great. But a new jailbreak tweak called SwitchService brings back the ability to toggle between iMessage and SMS messages, and as you'll see, it works very well.

New ‘Typecast’ tweak brings “now typing” and read receipt indicators to the fore

Typecast is a new jailbreak tweak that makes the "now typing" indicator and read receipt indicators associated with message conversations more prominent. Typecast is especially good when juggling multiple conversations at the same time, because it places the now typing indicators right on the conversation inside of the message list view.

If you've ever used TypeStatus, a similar tweak from which Typecast draws inspiration from, then you pretty much know what to expect here from a technical standpoint. But it's the way that Typecast presents itself, and the fact that it works with additional apps, that makes it warrant a look— even if you already use TypeStatus.

iOS 9 tidbits: Force Touch support, updated keyboard designs, iMessage enhancements & more

iOS 9, the next major iteration of Apple's mobile operating system powering the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, reportedly has built-in support for Force Touch technology which debuted on the Apple Watch, suggesting the possibility of pressure-sensitive screens on the next iPhone and iPad.

According to a new report by 9to5Mac, the operating system also features support for Apple Pay in Canada, has improved software keyboard with new designs and enhances iMessage by enabling read receipts for group chat threads and on a per-contact basis.