iPhone 3.0: Now With Text Message Privacy

iPhone 3.0 SMS privacy

One of the problems I used to complain about most was iPhone’s “SMS Preview” feature, which prompted you with an excerpt of any incoming text message you received. You can imagine — or maybe you’ve actually experienced — the awkwardness when a raunchy text message from your significant other pops up on your screen while a relative or coworker is using your iPhone.

SMS Preview and the lack of text message privacy on the iPhone caused embarrassment for a lot of my readers, who left comments about inappropriate text messages popping up on their screens at the worst times — pretty funny, you should go read them.

After TWO YEARS of complaining about this extremely irritating issue, Apple has finally heard our pleas and given us the option in iPhone 3.0 to turn off SMS Preview for incoming text messages.

Just go to Settings >> Messages to turn SMS Preview on or off. That’s it, no more unnecessary text message drama.

Update: Mark writes,

I do not agree that this solves the problem. I actually think Apple needed one more SMS privacy preferences option to completely suppress pop ups for text messages, don’t you? Complete suppression of text messages would be I don’t get any popups about any text messages if desired.

I agree. I noted this as a concern in my post 6 iPhone Privacy Issues You Should Be Concerned About.

Set SMS Privacy Levels With the Kate App [Jailbreak Required]

iPhone SMS Privacy

Update: The SMS Preview privacy issue is now resolved as of the iPhone 3.0 software update.

SMS Preview — the iPhone feature that interrupts what you’re doing to display an excerpt of an incoming text message on your screen — has been a privacy concern of mine since the iPhone was released last June. Now RiP Dev, a third-party development team, has released a solution.

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How Has iPhone’s SMS Preview Gotten You Into Trouble?

iPhone text privacy

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.

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iPhone Text Message Privacy: How to Turn off SMS Preview

Update: The SMS Preview privacy issue is now resolved as of the iPhone 3.0 software update.

In my original iPhone review, I complained about having little privacy on the iPhone when receiving incoming text messages.

When you receive an SMS message on your iPhone, a preview of the message content pops up on the screen, and you can choose to either view it or ignore it. While this “SMS Preview” feature may be very convenient, it could be troublesome if a friend or family member is playing with your cool new gadget and a message you’d rather have remained private pops up on your screen — ouch!

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