iMessage

Apple has acknowledged a bug in iOS 7 that is causing some people to have problems with their iMessage app. Users have been reporting that they are unable to send messages, or are being forced to send messages twice. Others are receiving an alert after a message has been sent using the app.

“We are aware of an issue that affects a fraction of a percent of our iMessage users, and we will have a fix available in an upcoming software update,” Apple said in a statement. “In the meantime, we encourage any users having problems to reference our troubleshooting documents or contact AppleCare to help resolve their issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes impacted users.”

iMessage Spam, we all get it, and we all think it is annoying. Luckily Apple is tired of it too, and has established a way for iPhone users to report it. iPhone owners can now take a screenshot of unwanted spam, and email them to imessage.spam@icloud.com. You must include the full email address or phone number of the spammer, and the date and time that you received the message. It's unknown what Apple plans to do with the information, but hopefully they're planning to do something to slow down the amount of iMessage spam iPhone owners receive.

Apple is also adding the ability to block unwanted callers with iOS 7. Users will be able to add specific contacts to a "Block Contact" list after the new firmware is released. Previously you needed a jailbroken device to block unwanted calls.

Developers keep discovering more and more new features in the iOS 7 beta everyday. Here are few new discoveries since Apple released the third beta on July 8th.

Previously iOS users could only make video calls while using FaceTime, but Apple has added the ability to have audio-only voice chats when using the video conferencing feature. To make an audio call using FaceTime, just locate and tap the person's name you want to contact, then tap the new telephone icon to place the call. You will be able to perform other tasks like muting the microphone or switching to a video chat once the call is connected.

You might think that wiping your lost or stolen iOS device would prevent another party from receiving messages via iMessage on the wiped device. As it turns out, Apple will be doing some work to issue a security update in future iterations of iMessage.

Users have discovered through an unpleasant trial and error process that the only way to stop text messages coming in via the iMessage service is to change your Apple ID. Wiping the lost iPhone and deactivating the phone number does nothing to stop a thief from receiving and reading your iMessages. These texts will be delivered to your old iPhone as well as the new one you just purchased to replace the lost device.

Sure it may not happen right away, but one developer has already found evidence pointing to a future compatibility between iMessage on iOS devices and iChat on Mac OS X computers. The snippet of code leading to this conclusion revealed two new properties in OS X Lion's version of iChat software.

These properties could be the beginning of Apple adding full support for iMessage to iChat instant messaging. The "time delivered" and "time read" fields are not used or needed in iChat, however they are already used by iMessage to track instant messaging. According to MacRumors Apple would have no other reason to add these lines of code.