Apple announced many new iMessage features, including the ability to edit, unsend and mark messages as unread. However, are they available for iOS 15?
At its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 6, Apple announced a slew of new iMessage features, but are they available for iOS 15 and older? The new iMessage features will enable users to edit, unsend and mark messages as unread after they’ve been sent. The features will be housed within the interaction menu that can be accessed by long-pressing on an iMessage. Currently, the menu allows users to copy or translate the message, but the new feature drop will add three more buttons for ‘Edit,’ ‘Undo Send’ and ‘Mark as Unread.’
Apple launched its proprietary instant messaging service, iMessage, in 2011. It’s available on macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS. Unlike WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram and other popular messaging services, it is not available on Android and other non-Apple platforms. There are workarounds to use iMessage on Android, Windows and Linux, but the real app remains missing in action. Despite its unavailability on non-Apple platforms, iMessage remains incredibly popular among iPhone users. The new features will likely increase its popularity among the iMessage faithful.
According to Apple, the latest iMessage features are only meant for iOS 16 and above, meaning devices running iOS 15 and older will not receive the new features. However, for devices that are compatible with iOS 16, the ability to edit, undo and unread iMessages will be a great addition and should satisfy users who had long been clamoring for them.
New IMessage Features For IOS 16
Not only will the new features be unavailable on non-iOS 16 devices, but a new report from 9to5Mac now suggests that they will also be getting the rough end of the stick when it comes to receiving edited messages from iOS 16 devices. According to the report, when someone sends an edited message from an iPhone running iOS 16 Beta 2 to a device running iOS 15 or older, the latter will receive the edited test as a second message, preceded by the words “Edited for.” It’s unclear if this will change with the final stable version of iOS 16, but if it doesn’t, it will result in a messy chat thread for people running older versions of iOS.
The new features will function as expected for the fortunate users using relatively newer devices that can be updated to iOS 16. The ‘Edit’ button will allow users to edit an iMessage after it has already been sent. The ‘Undo’ button will remove an iMessage after it has been sent, although it’s not clear how long a window the sender will get to retract their iMessage. Finally, the ‘Mark as Unread’ button will allow the recipient to remove a read receipt from a message even after they have already seen it. The new features are expected to be a game-changer for power users who always wanted more granular control over how they use iMessage.
