When you are texting someone, it is very common that you realize you’ve made a typo only after you’ve sent the message. Texting has become so mainstream that most of us can message without even looking at our phone screens. But sometimes, this leads to disaster. And once you have sent the message, there’s nothing you can do to change it. Or can you?
For iPhone users, days of humiliation stemming from typos in sent messages are (kind of) over. Most Apple users prefer to communicate with other Apple users using iMessage, rather than other messengers. And Apple has finally introduced the exciting feature to edit sent text messages in iMessage.
How Does It Work?
With this new feature of iOS, you can edit a text message within 15 minutes of sending time up to 5 times. However, there is a little hiccup: for the feature to work, both the sender and receiver should be on iOS 16. If one of them is using an older version, i.e., iOS 15 or lower, the feature does not work. Maybe in the future, Apple might find a way around this constraint but it is very unlikely. And it goes without saying that the feature is only available for iMessage and not text messages.
Now let’s see how you can edit the text message. It’s a rather straightforward process.
1. Open the Messages app on your iPhone and go to the conversation (private or group chat) that has the message you want to edit.
2. Then, go to the recently sent message bubble and tap and hold it until a few options appear on the screen. Tap on ‘Edit’ from the list of options.
3. Type the replacement text in the textbox and tap the ‘check’ icon to save the changes. If you change your mind about editing it, tap the ‘cross’ icon instead.
4. The text message would be edited, although there’s rather something that subverts the entire feature for us. After you edit the message, the conversation not only shows that it was edited, but the recipient can also see the entire edit history. “Really, why would you do that Apple? What’s the point?”
Note: If the recipient is not on iOS 16, you’ll still get the option to edit the message and you’ll be able to edit it. But the recipient would instead receive a follow-up message that would begin with Edited, followed by the edited message in quotes. And unfortunately, iOS does not let you know whether the recipient is on iOS 16 or below when you edit a message.
In an ideal world, we would double-check our messages before sending them. But we don’t live in an ideal world. Thankfully, we can simply edit our messages now on iPhone with iOS 16.