Apple is Working on Edit Sent Messages for iMessage as Per a Patent Application

A lengthy patent document reveals that Apple is working on adding new features to the messages app including the ability to edit sent texts, app stickers, send money via Apple Pay within the app and more.

Discovered and throughly dissected by AppleInsider, the 980 pages patent document details functionality of current features, and mentions the new features that could be introduced in messages app in the future.

Edit a Sent Message and Resend it

The patent details multiple ways in which users will be able to edit already sent texts.

1. Users will be able to select the first message by a variety of touch gestures; deep press, tap, light press or long press.
2. Touch input on the message will automatically display a menu or an editing interface with a keyboard.
3. The altered message will be displayed with a send option to re-send the message’s revised version.

The document also reveals that Apple wants to incorporate more ways to compose revised texts besides typing via keyboard. As per AppleInsider:

 “There is a need for electronic devices with improved methods and interfaces for using handwriting inputs in a messaging application,” says. “Such methods and interfaces help improve user satisfaction with their devices and produce more efficient human-machine interfaces by allowing users, e.g., to simply rotate their device in order to begin entering handwritten inputs.”

Launch and use applications within Message app

Apple is focusing on offering the ability to search for and launch other apps within the Messages app as “application management”. In the current messages app, users can launch App Store to download third-party stickers, GiFs, simple games and more. However, the new capability aims to include “a plurality of scrollable application-selection affordances” in an application selection area.

Affordances are typically features that guide the user, so as he or she looks for an app, this might be a pop-up display that says what an application is, or offers some helpful options.

These ambitious details and drawings have us excited for what’s to come. In the current market, apps like Slack and Facebook offer edit sent messages ability but that feature is easier to release on a platform connected via a common server. The freedom to alter already sent texts via cellular network is very different. Maybe that is the reason why the patent document does not go in details regarding the technology and only focuses on the would-be functionality.

If Apple pulls this off, it will make Message app a competing service against already popular Chinese WeChat app with aforementioned features. Apps like WhatsApp and Instagram allow un-sending sent messages, however, none of them allow editing sent messages.