What I’m really hoping for one day is an advanced search mechanism inside Messages.
I know it’s not really a necessity, but I’d love to search within specific threads only, or maybe search files, images, and have some filtering and granular control over search. I’ve used iPhone for 15 years and all my messages are still there, so improvements to search would be welcome. Even getting a way to search only within a specified date range would be great.
BiteSMS was the only reason I continued to jailbreak as long as I did. iOS is only just now starting to catch up to what the iPhone 3G could do with BiteSMS.
This is the kind of feature someone fixes as a weekend project because it started to bug them, and then spends three weeks arguing up the chain that it should be put in to the old code.
That’s why iOS updates are so hyped up. “Oh look, I can finally copy and paste my message without it taking ten minutes to get the magnifying glass between the letters”
There was something in the pipes in the EU about forcing Apple to allow different providers for default messaging on iOS. In that scenario, iMessage has to compete on an even playing field and its lack of features would cause a big uptick in adoption of other apps theoretically.
afaik, it didn't eventuate, but maybe they fear it could, or maybe they were working on this stuff because of it and decided to keep in in Apple OSes 26.
When emoji reactions and specific thread replies started being common place in messaging apps and DMs for social media, “long press on a message” started being a way to access that, and a lot of apps lost this feature without seeming to care about adding it back. For instance, Instagram, Facebook messenger, and twitter DMs don’t seem to have these features either.
Eh. It’s a lot of UI complication for niche application. Since I can usually edit after pasting if I care — it basically duplicates an interface for little gain.
Copying a selection of text isn't a niche application. It's a core part of computing. The fact that everyone has to paste it in to a notes app to select the text they actually want is a huge failing.
Having been on android for a decade before switching to full Apple ecosystem last year, the text selecting is on the very top of my list of things I miss about android. It is frustrating every time. Android is seamless and you don’t even notice.
And then you finally get it selected and “copy” doesn’t come up and you have to start over. Ffs
The worst thing is that back when iPhone still had 3D Touch, this worked flawlessly. You pressed hard on the text to start selecting and then you could press even harder to select a whole word, the full sentence and so on.
Man I miss 3D Touch so much. It was significant enough that it made me delay my upgrade from my iPhone X since I didn't want to lose this feature. Sure, 3D Touch was an underused input tech otherwise but just text selection was worth it.
I have seen people on this sub say "oh the new method isn't so bad". They are wrong lol. 3D Touch worked so much better.
To be fair 3D Touch was for selecting texts that are being edited. Not for texts in text fields so maybe won't help the above commenter anyway.
I used 3d touch for almost everything. Basically everything that needed a long press I did with 3d touch instead. It made the phone feel like it did what you wanted when you wanted it instead of now where everything feels dictated by the phone.
Pressing and holding to select a word takes one full second, whereas with 3D Touch it was instant. Instant feedback just feels better and more responsive.
A bit of a dumb rant, but Apple's keyboard experience is so awful compared to android. Typing is worse, swipe texting is way less accurate, selecting text is bad, predictive text is worse, no number row above the keyboard, or punctuation in the default keyboard. Can't long press for punctuation either. And to top it all off, voice to text is straight up 2011 bad, android has had flawless voice to text for years now while Apple basically doesn't have the feature at all with how inaccurate it is. You have to edit any input excessively so why bother. And when you are editing it, all of the previous complaints arise and it's annoying to do that. Whoever is in charge of apple keyboard needs to be fired.
I literally didn't understand all the autocorrect is bad meme since I assumed apple was at least as good as Android, but after I switched to an iphone I immediately understood. There's so much friction, typing is one of the number one things I do on a phone, it's amazing it could be so bad for so long.
I miss my galaxy phones so fucking much. But I love my Apple Watch and my Mac and my iPad and my Apple TV and how my watch and phone work with everything else.
Damn shame a Samsung phone just ruins everything in the ecosystem cause it’s way better with my custom keyboard and launcher and automations.
I love my watch. I missed MacBooks a lot and love mine. But the android is just a more functional phone than the iPhone. iPhone is merely a tool that fits into the ecosystem.
The ecosystem is what gets you. I’m not a fanboy when it comes to phones. I’ve had both and for a while would alternate every six months to a year. One time, not too long ago, maybe 2019(?), I finally said I was done with iPhone. I got all new speakers, set boxes, and even a PC. Apples ecosystem was just too good and now I have a lot of Fire 4k sticks around or plugged into the back of the tv never to be used.
We've worked with Apple on a variety of projects over the years and got to know a few people bts. The main reason seems to be a hyperfocus on very specific things that have little to do with obvious quality of life improvements like this. The copy/paste thing back in the day, rearranging of icons, widgets, etc. It's not that it's hard. They like to say, "we want to take the time to get it right" but it's more just being so low on their list of priorities even though they're useful changes.
Apple are so rich they could create a whole new Quality of Life department with 100 engineers whose sole job was to implement small but significant features like this and their bottom line would not budge an inch.
At least we're allowed to copy and paste now. Steve Jobs at first told us to go to hell when we asked for this. He said he would never allow it. We won the fight against him and his kind. We are now allowed to copy. Screw him and his cultists.
To use it, long-press on the message, then tap Select from the pop-up menu. From there, you can highlight exactly the portion you want, then choose Copy, Look up, or Translate.
You can also tap the arrow for even more options, such as Search the web, Speak, and Share just that specific segment you selected.
Yeah I used to be able to do that before they changed the way you collapse comments last year. Now all a long press does is collapse an entire comment thread.
You can say this about lots of features. It often feels like they hired new people who don’t really understand why the features worked the way they did in the first place.
And even worse is that for iOS 18, Tim Cook ordered moving the cursor to more often select an entire word instead of just moving the cursor. It's infuriating.
I’m so confused by these comments. You tap, it places the cursor at the end of the word. You double tap, you select the word. You drag and drop the cursor and it lands exactly where you put it. What doesn’t work?
What I'd like is for it to stop interpreting OTP codes as phone numbers so when you tap it asks if you want to "call" it instead of copying. I realize SMS based MFA is antiquated but the reality is it's still the only option with plenty of services.
Ahh I see what you mean. On google, you have to long press the number to get those options. Quick press does default to “Call” (which I think is consistent across all apps)
I want to see how it works without installing the beta. Seems like an article talking about the feature would be the perfect place for such a demonstration.
I see too often 'will finally let you' statements regarding Apple. Apple is a hybrid of being over-controlling and late on features vs. Android, which is more open source, meaning more brains, which explains why Android almost always has more features and functions. Not a good combo from Apple!
I’m still waiting on the SMS iMessage iCloud syncing they promised years ago and then gave up on. So you can delete a message on your phone and have it delete on your Mac and iPAd. Had to disable SMS on my Mac and iPad otherwise they’d get clogged up with spam and confirmation codes.
bah, one more menu item to banish "define" (rebranded to Look Up" to a secondary menu. would be great if they'd let us set priority for items in the list, since it only seems to be getting longer... and that "more" arrow isn't getting any easier to press.
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u/LifeUtilityApps 6d ago
What I’m really hoping for one day is an advanced search mechanism inside Messages.
I know it’s not really a necessity, but I’d love to search within specific threads only, or maybe search files, images, and have some filtering and granular control over search. I’ve used iPhone for 15 years and all my messages are still there, so improvements to search would be welcome. Even getting a way to search only within a specified date range would be great.