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Update: The SMS Preview privacy issue is now resolved as of the iPhone 3.0 software update.
In my iPhone review last June, I pointed out a big privacy concern I had about iPhone’s SMS application: namely, the inability to turn off SMS Preview, which interrupts whatever you’re doing when you receive a text message and displays an excerpt of the message content on your screen.
As you can imagine, this can create an awkward situation when you receive a private text message and someone else is using your iPhone.
Imagine receiving a text message like the one shown above while you’re showing off your iPhone to your boss or to a coworker. (The message above was staged, I swear!)
Or perhaps you’re:
- watching a movie or YouTube video with someone, or
- letting a friend check their e-mail, or
- sharing photos with family, or
- having your copilot navigate using Google Maps
and then… *INCOMING*
…you receive a crude text from a buddy, a sexy message from your significant other, or some other private text message.
Ouch. iPhone’s SMS Preview could get you into some pretty humiliating situations.
So I’m wondering…
Has SMS Preview gotten you into trouble?
I was surprised to see how many people shared my concern about this privacy issue when I posted a sort of solution to turning off SMS Preview (which requires you to set a tedious passcode lock on your iPhone and does not always work, according to some readers).
Now I’m asking you to share any embarrassing moments or close calls you’ve had due to privacy issues with iPhone’s SMS preview.
Let’s get a discussion going in the comments so we can show Apple that SMS Preview is a real privacy concern that MUST be addressed in the next iPhone firmware update.
I’ll go first:
Recently I was at a meeting and someone in my group had to reference a PDF file but had forgotten her laptop. Since iPhone supports PDF files, I offered up my phone.As she was scrolling through the page with the iPhone set on the table, in comes a private text message from my ex-girlfriend. Upon hearing the ring, I said “excuse me” and quickly grabbed my phone.
I avoided a potentially embarrassing situation, but why should I have to worry about incidents like these? iPhone should display text message excerpts ONLY with my permission.
So what’s YOUR story? Leave a comment below and let us know.
Update: A commenter pointed out that a third-party app called Caterpillar solves iPhone’s SMS privacy issue. Click to read my review of the Caterpillar app’s Privacy feature.
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I was home one day with my new girlfriend and my old girlfriend sends a text, and I have the passcode and sms preview off, but name still appears so now I got to explain “Why is your ex texting you, are you fucking her, let me see your phone!” My ex just texted me about some stupid recipe because we have a casual friendly relationship now. Do I need to come up with a pseudonym for all my exs or any other girl besides my girlfriend now. Unbelievable Apple forces a pop-up when your surfing or whatever…what is it January 2010 and people are still bitching.
Everyone’shared similar stories so here’s another one to add to Apple’s desire for a fix. Paranoid girlfriend glances at my phone everytime it buzzes to see whose name comes up. I have NOTHING to hide, but the need to explain why certain girl is txting me at certain time, and then going through the whole ‘I’m not having an affair’ is fucking tiring. Apple fix this PLEASE, its not that hard !!
I had an iPhone 2g last year, and when I noticed the privacy issue I bought one for my wife of whom I was very skeptical. I am so generous. Not sure that it was worth the upgrade though. Long story short, we are now separated and in the middle of a divorce.
guess who owned an iPhone and wife saw pop msgs; yes…Tiger! APPLE…FIX THE PROBLEM!!!
I installed the Emoji App and then assigned a symbol to my husband, friends, etc. so now each time I get a text message, a symbol pops up instead of a name.
to avoid those type of days…just go into your iphone settings, messages and tap off in “show preview” then all that will show is the name of the person that is sending you an sms but not the sms itself….
I’m divorced and my kids want to play with my iphone everytime I’m with them. I also have a very fun, but very naughty girlfriend that likes to send me very naughty texts when I’m not there. Sucks that I have to text her “kids looking at youtube. I text you when they’re done. Huge HUGE pain in the ass.
How about this one? Email from model with whom I shoot about shooting nude the coming weekend when my wife was to be gone. Guess who reads it. Wife. My fault, I know, but a very bad scene.
Apparently iPhone fans are all cheats as well. Nearly every story here was “My wife saw txts from my GF!”. It makes sense though really. I recieved an iPhone as a gift for father’s day, its a horrible clunkly piece of junk, but I keep it so as not to hurt my wife’s feelings. I hate this thing. This is one of the hundreds of nit-picking reasons to hate the phone, though I was more annoyed by the fact that invarialy that peview box pops up while I’m doing something in an app, right as i’m trying to type on that smudgey piece of crap screen and BAM, end up tapping REPLY, and oh look, my app is closed. I get wait 5 minutes for it to load up again on this underpowered piece of junk. Did have my daughters birthday gift spoiled by that popup though. Funtastic. I hate my iTurd.
wow you just sound like a depressing person.
OMG … what a relief to read all these stories. In a very fucked up way I am so glad I am not the only one with these kind of experiences with this awfull limitation of iphone sms.
Sorry guys and girls, but I know what you all mean. I have run into many many problems with my wife who thinks I cheat on her just because I keep in touch with an old friend (actually old girlfriend) but I really do only keep in touch. I can’t let her go or dissapear out of my life. So I just drop in and say hello every now and then but on those few occasions that my wife caught them messages, I got shit, then I gave shit back to her.
I tried everything but nothing has successfully worked for me. It has come to the point where I have a lock on my iphone and in my pocket almost 24/7.
Apple, please fix this very big problem that can be fixed very easily. I have a technical background and I know how easy of fix this can be for your engineers.
Thanks you all, it feels like I have a family.
Ciao
We,, i received a text from a friend’s wife asking me if i was going out tonight and even tho i dont even talk to her in any kind of way and for some reason she decide to text me instead of my wife. I was sleepin then my wife woke up like WTK is this so it took me a while to be on her good side again and nobody believes either me or her. So i been tryin to find for an y app that will solve this issue i dont want my text to pop up at all. i benn looking for this app but i can’t find them, any hints??
Hey Turps…I’m with you. I hated the fact that my co-worker or a friend could pick up my phone and go the net to look at a video or for something else, and all of a sudden a text msg from my girlfriend pops up with details about what we did during lunch or the night before.
The iPhone is one of those devices that just draws attention to itself and when people see it they want to play with it, not to mention my son..he thinks it’s a portable game system…LOL. Some people think it’s their right to “test it out” and for waaay too long. THANK GOD THAT APPLE FINALLY USED SOME COMMON SENSE AND FIXED THIS PROBLEM.
I really feel sorry for the people who had to suffer through this for a couple of years. Dumb asses like “j” piss me off with their stupid one demensional comments…what dumb fuck!!!
Rollo, I was going to say the same thing. I couldnt careless if my GF read all my text messages and MSN history. I would prefer if the people I work for and with didnt see. I would also prefer that people that its none of there business dont see half my message when my phone is sitting on a bench.
Hey “J”…why don’t you go fuck yourself you dumb ass. Do you think everyone on here is fucking around and the only way the iPhone could make your life a little difficult would only be because you were fucking around. Let me guess you really are as stuppid as you sound (and I could figure that out from from your one sentence). Looks like you were too stuppid to actually read some of the posts on here. I’ve got an idea…why don’t you take some time to read the posts (some quite entertaining) and then pull you dumb head out of your ass, smell some fresh air and post a comment constructive comment next time.
Here’s an idea…don’t trick around you fucking morons…maybe then you won’t have anything to talk about.
haha.I love iphone. I just foundout that my boyfriend of 2 1/2 years was cheating. When he went to take a shower his iphone buzed(he kept it silent) n i thought it was an important msg from his work. So i thought of giving the phone to him. Only to my suprise it was a text from another girl which he was texting all night even while he is suppose to study for his exams (such a looser). I can’t thank Apple enough for opening my eyes. Say what ever u want I love iPhone.
Fortunately I just got a 3GS with OS 3.0 so I don’t have this problem. But I did read someone’s comment about men who are married but have girlfriends are the scum of the earth. Well what about wives who have boyfriends? Are they not the scum of the earth? Are women just not capable of cheating because I saw a few posts here that would prove otherwise.
Finding messages that shouldn’t have been there has happened to this man’s wife. I saw msgs from a woman he admitted that he “liked” and subseqently discovered it was much more. It isn’t the technology that’s a problem -it’s the personal code of ethics of the users. But a good one to keep your spouse in a permanent state of anxiety.
Ok, I just got my Iphone and of course everyone has to check it out (the bling bling factor). My co-worker in the office next to mine was looking at some youtube videos and enjoying the hell out of my phone when the music stopped and she got a flushed look on her face. I thought the phone crashed on her, she handed me my phone and said do you know “*&^%$”? I said yes I do why? She said well she wants you to…blankity blankity her…yes it said what you are probably thinking!!! Now this message was sent to my phone in error but I could see where this would be a MAJOR problem and I spent several hours researching on how to turn off preview. Well, I eventually like everyone else hear learned that there is no way to turn this off. The password only dissables preview when locked…and of course no one will be checking your phone out with it locked…Right! I really can’t believe Apple does not allow this preview to be turned off completely…unbelieveable…or let someone else write an app. to dissable this. I hope Apple gets wind of this message board or others like this and fixes this pain in the a$$ issue. Ok, I feel better now!!
Well I had a problem earlier, my girlfriend where I’m stationed at didn’t have her phone with her and my chick back home sent me a drunk text ‘ im sorry i just want to fuck you so bad right now’ and a bunch of other garbled drunk text… after i got the phone back… So my girl just turned back and handed me the phone real calm, and I had so much shame but I played it off like it was nothing, because I am deploying soon I didn’t feel like explaining it all. So I figured out how to hide SMS preview, BUT THIS ONLY WORKS if the phone is LOCKED!!!
Also if I am looking at my phone all day to check my stocks, like I always am on iStockManger app, anyone can see my freaking incoming texts. So I’m talking to this new chick, and I like to keep my ‘relationships’ covert and discreet. I don’t kiss and tell and well, this new chick I’m talking to text me and this fucking looooser i work with saw it and now of course he is going to tell everybody in my whole squadron that I’m talking to this girl. Which is props for me, but not good for hooking up later.
WHAT THE HECK APPLE?!?!?! Do I really have to go through my phone and change all the female contacts names around? And if I changed to a guy’s name so my girl doesn’t get suspicious if she sees it, everyone will say I’m freaking gay, not that I care, but would make work a little more annoying than it already is.
Please fix this, not everybody has a girl that understands this. And I don’t want to horde my phone in privacy, I can’t afford to do that with my day-trading. And plus… EVERYONE wants to play with the damn iphone whenever they see it…
It’s like they’re doing it on purpose, PLEASE fix this in the future when you get bored of hearing peoples embarassments
LMAO @ London21, i can totally relate to this guys situation, im completly crude and filthy like with several people. For that reason NOONE SEES MY PHONE, its permantly locked!!!
I came from a solid, secure blackberry to the iPhone, i was very tempted to go back when i realised the sms preview couldnt be turned off. How rediculous is that!
Anyway, im hoping this passcode thingy stops it, the fact that i HIDE my phone looks very dodgy!!! Be nice to be able to leave it lying round and be safe in the knowledge that noone can access it.
APPLE SORT IT!
That whole passcode thing is a pain. If I knew I had to go to that much effort to get rid of preview. I would have stuck with my last flip phone and just used my PDA to surf the net.
@Shane Yes, this works, but if the phone is unlocked, like when someone is checking their email on your phone for example, the message excerpt will still pop up.
Settings – General – Passcode Lock – Show SMS Preview (turn off)
This will prompt you that there is a message but the message will not be displayed
My 7 yr old was playing an app on my iPhone I and went upstairs for a quick errand. I came back downstairs, and he told me that he knew my and “Bob’s” secret. I am a month away from my divorce being finalized, and my lover “Bob” sent me a text saying how much he loved me, how beautiful he thought I was, and how he couldn’t wait to see me. I tried to play it off that “Bob” has a girlfriend and he accidently sent it to me. I don’t know if my son bought it. I just hope he doesn’t say anything to my soon-to-be-ex!
Turn Airplane Mode to On, and that will stop anything from comming into your iPhone. I do this while my kids were using it to play games.
Cam.
P.S. Before I thought of this solution, I tried to download Kate (Caterpillar) from RipDev (supposed to allow you to control notifications), but it was the most confusing install process ever, and never worked. I finally had to uninstall everything.
so one of my girlfriends is visiting me. I’m texting my old high school girlfilriend,and she sends a text apologizing about how she was drunk texting me about how she just wanted to F me… anyway she says “sorry but that would be really awesome to f@!$ around”. and my girl hands me my phone confidently like… ‘explain this’
well I’m pretending she hasn’t seen it for now, but we’re not too serious since she’s going home soon, but just very uncomfortable and can’t act the same way as before… plus what if we have a future? she will always have this incident lodged in the back of her mind.
anyway she is always trying to watch what I’m doing on my phone now! sucks!
Apple, I’m not a player! I just crush alot! pleaaaaasssssseee fix this! privacy act!!!!