Janis Weber
Copying and pasting a text is not too hard. Copying messages can be tricky because it’s difficult to highlight a body of text on your phone using only your finger. Sometimes you want to forward the entire contents of a text to show it to someone else, to re-submit deleted info, or to forward it to another recipient. Then you can simply “long press” a message. Tap More on the bottom menu, and then select the arrow in the bottom left corner to forward it. The original message’s content will be copied as a new message. Just select the recipients as usual. Once you are in the new recipient’s message area, just do the same. Press and hold then choose the paste option.
Stop annoying alerts
The good news is that iPhones will send you two text alerts when you receive a text message, as well as the optional accompanying sounds. This is a default setting, and you’ll receive the two alerts within a two-minute interval. While this is great for most occasions, I personally find it redundant. To have your iPhone send single text alerts only, go to Settings, Notifications, Messages. Scroll down to Repeat Alert then set it to Never.
Silence maddening group messages
After joining a group-texting session, we get the information we need and then we think, “Okay, I’m done. No need for more texts.” But still the alerts ping, ping, and ping away, and they can easily get overwhelming. Thankfully, you can silence these group alerts on your iPhone. To mute group message alerts, swipe left on the group message then tap Hide Alerts. You’ll then see a moon icon on the left side of the group to indicate that it’s muted. Nice.
Know who’s texting you
Similar to having special ringtones for your special someone, you also can set special text tones for specific contacts. This is great for knowing exactly who just texted you. To set up a special text tone on your iPhone, select the specific Contact (on the Contacts app or the Phone app), then tap “Edit” on the upper right. Now on the “Text Tone” section, change it from “Default” to something else. You can also change the specific contact’s vibration alert in this section.
Send selective read receipts
By default, read receipts are turned off, however, Apple has brought the ability to turn the function on for certain contacts, rather than give blanket permissions to all. This could be useful if you want your significant other to know you’ve read their message, but don’t want your mom to know you’ve seen her latest mammoth missive. If you do want to turn on read receipts for everyone that requests one, go to Settings, Messages, then toggle Send Read Receipts to on.
iPhone can read out messages
Offered as part of Apple’s accessibility suite of features, this is aimed at visually impaired iPhone owners, but can have some merit (and some comedy value) for all. Your iPhone can read out your texts to you, all you need to do is enable Speak Selection. Go to Settings, General, Accessibility, Speech, then toggle Speak Selection to on.
Definition of The Day:
TEXTING is a slang term that refers to the creation and transmission of short electronic text messages between two or more mobile device users over a network. This usually means sending messages with no more than 100 characters, although it has now been extended to include audio, images and video content, known as multimedia message service (MMS). The term texting was originally used as a form of short message service (SMS), which allowed only 144 pure text characters per message.
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Janis Weber, B.A., owner of Ohio Computer Training & Support, is a professional computer adjunct instructor. E-mail any specific questions or comments to JwPCtutor@Gmail.com or call her for assistance at 419-290-3570. Private tutoring and repairs are just a phone call, text, or email away.