Best Cydia Tweaks for iMessage and Your iPhone Messages App

In iOS 10, Apple took their stock Messages app to the next level by making tons of amazing changes to the application.

If you didn’t update to the newest firmware yet, here’s a quick recap of the overhaul.

  • A whole new marketplace for sticker packs and apps
  • Thumbnail previews added to external links
  • Send handwritten notes
  • Easier option to control read receipt
  • Text to emoji translation

With all that, the Messages app is already up-to-date and can keep a lot of us happy, especially in iOS 10. But I think Apple still forgot to implement a few standard features that many of people have requested.

This include:

  • Sending text messages to a bunch of people at the same time without adding them to a group chat.
  • An iMessage app on Windows
  • Harder to delete text messages
  • Bringing the exclusive words to emoji features to older firmware

But guess what? If your device is jailbroken, all of these functionalities mentioned above are possible to be added to your iPhone’s Messages app.

Add Confirmation Dialog Before Deleting Text Messages

Okay, let’s start with the most obvious. We all know how easy it’s to delete a conversation in your Messages app. And because of this, sometimes we make a mistake and delete something that we weren’t supposed to.

If you regularly find yourself deleting old or random messages, it’s good to double check sometimes.

iPhone’s iMessage or regular messages can not be retrieved via an option. What you can do is restore from a backup or use an additional app to retrieve deleted messages.

I can guarantee that it will take a lot of time and require some technical skills.

A better way to solve this problem

There is a better solution to avoid making silly mistakes in the Messages app. A better approach to “accidentally deleted your iPhone text messages” would be adding a confirmation dialog.

MessageDeleteConfirmer is a free jailbreak tweak that will add a Delete Confirmation to whenever you attempt to delete an iPhone message. When swiping right and tap on the red Delete button, a popup will appear asking if you want to proceed.

This will make sure that you know what you’re doing and in case that was a mistake, you can just choose Cancel.

How to Confirm Before Deleting iPhone Messages

  1. Go to Cydia and wait for it to refresh
  2. Head over to the Search page and type in MessageDeleteConfirmer
  3. The author of this tweak is iPawk and tap on the Install button
  4. Respring your device and go to the Messages.app

confirm-delete-imessage

Note that in term of the interface, nothing changes. But if you try to delete an iMessage or SMS, it will now ask

Are you sure you want to delete this thread?

Choose Delete if that is what you want or Cancel to make sure you selected the right thread. As described by the developer, this tweak can “Potentially saves a big hassle or general heartache!”.

You can see MessageDeleteConfirmer tweak as a simple undo option for every time you make a simple mistake that could cost you all your important messages.

Send a Text to Multiple People Without Group Message

What’s the best way to send multiple same messages without wasting time? The answer is adding every recipient to a group chat.

This particular feature doesn’t exist only on iPhone and iPad. You can find it on Android and other smartphones as well. Group messaging is a neat functionality that allows you to send a message to a group of people. Therefore, you can just press Send once, and multiple recipients will be able to get it.

But that could be a bit awkward when most people in the group chat don’t even know each other.

The developer of IfFound3, CP Digital Darkroom, recently released a free jailbreak tweak called Teardrop to help solve this problem.

Getting Started

  1. The first thing you want to do is go on Cydia
  2. Go to Sources > Edit > Add
  3. Enter the following URL: http://repo.cpdigitaldarkroom.com/
  4. Using the Search feature, type in Teardrop and then Install

Unlike other tweaks, you won’t be able to find any options in the Settings app. Instead, you have to use Activator (pre-included) to quickly assign how you want to trigger Teardrop.

The activation methods are limited to lock screen or home screen only.

Here is a quick example of how to use the Activator tweak.

I’ll assign Teardrop to At Home Screen > Unlocked.

This means that the minute I unlock my iPhone screen, a popup will appear and lets me send mass text messages.

teardrop-tweak

Fairly easy and straightforward, isn’t it?

I love using this tweak because again, I’m not forcing anyone to be in a group chat, the text message will be sent as individual thread, and my contacts will not see the numbers of other recipients.

As recommended by the developer, if you’re going to use Teardrop to annoy your friends, please stop if they asked you to do so.

Using iMessage on Windows

The best part of using multiple Apple products is accessibility.

If you own a Macbook Air and an iPhone, you can perform a lot of tasks that you normally do on your iPhone right on the laptop. For example, when I’m working, and someone sends me a text message, I can reply to them right from the Macbook Air.

mac-os-x-iphone-messages-app

How convenient is that? But if you have an iOS device and a Windows computer, it becomes two separate things.

I don’t know about other apps, but as for the Messages app, there is a workaround.

Interesting…Tell me more

Instead of picking up your iPhone, unlock it, read the text, and use the little keyboards to type and send the message back. Why not just use a computer while you’re at it?

This will help to avoid distractions when working in an office (switching back between devices).

WinMessage (an open source on Github)

WinMessage is free to use software that brings iMessage to your Windows computer. It doesn’t matter if you have a desktop or laptop, it will work.

winmessage-imessage-app

Released as a source code on Github by developer 0xFireball. But don’t get too excited as there are several requirements and notes to follow. As far as the setup process goes, you are not required to compile any source code or download additional tools on your computer.

However, your iPhone or iPad must be jailbroken.

How does this all work?

As noted on the dev page, users can use their iMessage on Windows by connecting to “a WebSocket server called Remote Messages.” Which means we will have to install a tweak called Remote Messages from Cydia.

Getting Started with WinMessage on your PC

  1. Download the latest built of WinMessage from here (not the source code, just the .exe)
  2. Click on the setup icon and proceed. Now WinMessage will appear on your desktop, but don’t open it yet
  3. On your iOS device, open Cydia > Search > and install Remote Messages
  4. Go to the Settings page and find the Remote Messages option. Be sure to know the current IP address, adjust your account details, and enable SSL in the configuration page
  5. Back to your computer, launch WinMessage. The login screen will appear, and you may enter the credential from the step above

winmessage-login-screen

After that, you should be able to get inside your iMessage account on the Windows computer.

Potential risks

The developer of this software made a comment below about the possible risk. He has removed the executable file aka installer. From now on, to run WinMessage, you will have to build it from the source code.

But hey, the good thing is that you can now reply and compose an SMS/iMessage on a Windows PC. Let us know how that goes for you.

iOS 10 Predictive Emoji on iOS 9

There are many shortcuts to texting in iOS. With some default features that Apple has implemented, it makes texting more convenience and time-saving.

For example, we now have word suggestion. While you type, there is an extra bar on top of your keyboard. It learns your context and suggests three appropriate words that you might type next.

We also have other features such as:

  • Auto-capitalization
  • Auto-correction
  • Character Preview
  • “.” Shortcut

Predictive Emoji

With the release of iOS 10, Apple introduces another one called Predictive Emoji. Just like the traditional Predictive feature, when you use iMessage on iOS 10, it will now suggest emoji as regular words.

A good way to put it will be:

ios-10-predict-emojis

As you can see, iOS 10 learn what you want to type next and suggest it to you in the form of corresponding emoji.

Unfortunately, many of us are still using iOS 9, specifically, jailbroken iOS 9. If that’s the case, there is a new jailbreak tweak that can help you get this Emoji prediction feature on older firmware.

iOS 10-like emoji predictions tweak

EmojiSuggest can now add emojis to the prediction bar in iOS 9 (just like in iOS 10). Not only that but this tweak can also predict “nearly 700 words with support for basic plurals”.

The rest as followed:

  • Contains an option to replace the word typed or simply add the emoji
  • Compatible with MorePredict and PredictionShortcuts

If you like the new Emoji Prediction from iOS 10 but doesn’t want to take the risk of updating your firmware EmojiSuggest is a great alternative.

How to Install it:

  1. Launch Cydia and reload your sources
  2. Go to the BigBoss repo
  3. Install EmojiSuggest
  4. Go to Settings and enable it

You can start using the tweak right away upon activation.

emojisuggest-tweak

To find out if it’s working or not, open iMessage and compose a text. If the prediction bar is showing both suggestive words and emojis then you know the tweak is legit.

Macio

You may be familiar with how the Activator tweak by Ryan Petrich works.

Certain features on your iPhone or iPad can be activated just by tapping on your status bar or double pressing the home button. Macio is a tweak that does the same thing but now using your keyboards.

best-cydia-tweaks-macio

By default, to open up Control Center, you will have to swipe up from the bottom of your screen. But with this tweak, users can hold the letter “h” to trigger handy key or “c” for Control Center.

TypeStatus 2

TypeStatus is not a new jailbreak tweak, in fact, it was one of the most attractive packages for iOS 7 not long ago. This simple tweak allows iMessage users to know when someone has read their message and when they are started typing right through the iOS status bar.

best-cydia-tweaks-type-status

It took awhile for the tweak to get updated for Apple’s latest firmware, but here it’s, introducing TypeStaus 2. Hashbang Productions has made it available on their beta repo, for free.

Once TypeStatus 2 is installed, there will be several options for you to enable and disable from the Settings app.

  • Status Bar Overlay
  • Status Bar icon
  • Hide Inside Messages

You can also set an overlay display duration and animations. Add this repo: http://cydia.hbang.ws if you wish to download and install TypeStatus 2 for iOS 7 – 9.

We also have several other dedicated posts for the Messages app as well. You can check them out below.

Leave a Comment

  1. I am the author of WinMessage. The encrypted installer was created by a random chinese tool I found on the internet. I myself was not aware of its internals. I used it because it offered to compress multiple setup files into one. After reading about the risks on Reddit, I removed the installer. You will still be able to use the project, but must now build it from source. I hope this will help people trust the software, and I apologize for my not taking a closer look into the installer.

    I also wanted to thank the author of this post! Thanks!

    Reply

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