iOS4 – iPhone Hidden Feature: Group Messaging Bug or SMS/MMS Chat Room?
Posted on: June 28, 201051 comments so far (is that a lot?)
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Update (August 2011)- “group messaging” (group MMS) is now officially offered with Apple’s iOS 4 and now iOS 5. This post was written to explain Group MMS before Apple had originally released it. We explain what it is and why it was initially thought of as a “bug.” If you want it turned off, keep reading.
Latest Group MMS Update – November 1, 2011:
By now, this blog post has been one of the most popular blog posts of the Moxie Mo Show. To give our readers and podcast viewers an update, Group MMS is no bug but rather a very cool and effective “instant messaging” tool for your iPhone. As of the release of iOS 5, you can now group chat in iMessage for FREE (as long as you’re sending a photo, video or text to other iPhone and iPad users who are on iOS 5). How do you know if you’re using iMessage versus just sending a regular SMS text? It will be in the color BLUE and not green (see below). Make sure you turn ON iMessage and Group MMS in your iPhone or iPad Settings menu.
June 28, 2010:
So I happened to go into my new iOS4 settings (on my new iPhone 4, but would work on iPhone 3 series as long as you’ve upgraded to iOS 4.0) and noticed there’s a new thing called Group Messaging. Had no idea what it is, so I turned it on. What I’ve read is that Group Messaging basically threads your SMS/MMSs and shows a double-head icon so you know that you sent out a SMS or MMS to multiple people. That’s no biggie, right? Here’s the settings to turn Group Messaging on for SMS/MMS:
I got a MMS (photo) from my friend, Alex, of his dog… and I openend it up and saw the picture of his dog. I didn’t think anything of it until I could see at the top of his MMS message every other number that he sent the photo to. It wasn’t just to me, but to four other numbers. I saw their numbers as well. I thought this was weird so I started googling about this… I’m not sure if most iOS4 iPhone users even know about this new change? So I did some research and a test…. sure enough, this is either a bug or it’s meant to be a new feature – no more group MMS/SMS without everyone seeing who you’re sending it to… AND they can all speak to each other within the same “Group SMS/MMS”! UPDATE – It’s no bug, a group MMS, when turned on, can be a “instant chat room” for everyone you send your SMS/MMS to (updated July 2010).
So here’s what I found in a Mac forum from an iPhone iOS4.0 user: “Group Messaging seems slightly confusing to me… Given the written material released from Apple, the impression you get from it is that when you send a group text out, any replies sent back from any member of that group message is all grouped together in one thread. Having said that, it seems to function different than advertised…now when I send group messages out they are sent as an MMS not an SMS, even if it only contains text. Furthermore, and even worse, everyone that I messaged is able to see the full list of people I sent the message to. I dunno if this is how the function is intended to perform but it was certainly not explained that way.”
So I knew what I had seen from my friend Alex was something different. So I asked Alex to test it out with me and two of my best friends (Kasie and Kristine). As you can see, they at first couldn’t see who I was sending the photos to until I told them to go into their iPhone settings – Messages – and turn ON Group Messages (see photo above).
BAM – every one of us could see each other’s phone numbers and THEN Alex could text Kristine within my original MMS and she could reply back! It was like a “Chat IM” but in MMS format.
I can see where it would be fun – you send a group text or photo to a group of friends, everyone then gets to respond to that message and talk to others besides the original text/MMS sender. But I also think this could be DANGEROUS if you’re sending something to your friends and your boss – do you really want your boss to see your friends information or vice versa?
Update: In order for Group MMS to work, you need it to be turned on. It can be a very useful and a cool MMS/SMS chat tool between friends… but if you do NOT want everyone seeing who you’re texting or sending a photo/video to, turn off Group Messaging in your iOS4 or iOS 5 settings. Want more info? Subscribe to the Moxie Mo Show – one of the moxiest technology, gadgets, social media and breaking tech news podcasts around!
July 2nd, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Interesting.. I just got a regular text from a friend, but I could tell by the wording that it was a mass-text. A friend of his responded and it came to me as a new message from a number that I didn’t know. I responded back. Kinda creepy since there was nothing to show that it was a group message.
iOS4 on iPhone3GS
July 5th, 2010 at 3:06 am
hmm… There is no Group Messaging option on iOS4 in the UK from the O2 network. Anyone else confirm?
July 8th, 2010 at 6:05 am
Can confirm no Group Messaging option on iOS4 in the UK from the O2 network. Now thats a bit of a bummer cause thats looks kind of kool
July 8th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
If you turn off group messaging, you can actually still send a text to a group of people. The text will be just like OS3 instead of being multimedia.
July 17th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Another interesting thing I have found is that with Group MMS turned on, everyone that I send the message to gets it except for one friend that has the old 1st gen iPhone. He just doesn’t get it at all. Anyone else know of this problem and/or a work around?
August 21st, 2010 at 5:50 pm
i wanna know how to cancel a group chat. that is the only problem i have with it because once your in it your in it even if you dont want to be.
August 22nd, 2010 at 8:05 pm
i turned the group texting on, and i recieved a txt from a friend of mine, i noticed the extra names at the top but paid them no attention, i replied back to the text, “call me” now everyone who was texted is calling me back!! hey you said call you, well i didnt know any of the ppl who were txting. i dont think this can be a good thing, although in waiting on apple to put together a group txt you can store under one name and senf out to multi- ppl when it becomes available plez let me know
August 24th, 2010 at 10:55 am
Not good w/o more control. Just upgraded to iOS4 and received a group mms…replied to sender (and only sender, I thought). Received two irate msgs from people who got my reply totally out of context (not associated with the original group msg and with no idea who I was.) Needs a bcc feature.
August 30th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
It causes my messages to look more like e-mails to a few people with older phones (such as a Blackberry). When they reply to me, it looks like this:
shows “Re: no subject”, followed by their msg, followed by:
Re: no subject
Blah blah this is their response to
me blah blah blah…
——Original Message——
To: +15091234567
From: +15097654321
Subject: no subject
blah blah blah my original message
will appear here. Blah blah blah
I *really* don’t like this as it totally clutters up the flow and readability of the text msg.
October 26th, 2010 at 9:25 am
I agree with Beau…i sent out a group text and i didn’t know every number would be seen by each recipient. up until this point i was in love with my phone but hidden features like this are not cool, every number on that list was shared without permission from the owners. i got in trouble with some of my friends and a couple of them got into an argument with each other b/c they were receiving messages from ppl they didn’t know.
For me, until they add a bcc option, this feature gets a FAIL.
November 3rd, 2010 at 10:24 am
I agree that this is a really annoying feature. I didn’t even turn on group messaging on my phone, but because my brothers did, I’m receiving texts from them that aren’t meant to go to me, and vice-versa. On top of this, my older brother got a new phone and didn’t add me to his contacts yet, so neither of us recognized the other one’s numbers. I was seriously on the verge of contacting the authorities, thinking I was being harassed by some stranger. As funny as it seems now, it was very frightening at the time. This problem really needs to be fixed.
November 15th, 2010 at 10:11 am
This feature is cool, but at the same time it’s dumb. Say I want to send a picture to 5 people, and I create a new MMS and attach 5 peoples names to it, (so I don’t have to send 5 separate texts individually), well, now when any of those 5 people reply, EVERYONE see’s their reply!!! Many people are getting mad at me, and it never used to do this. I was told at&t just turned a setting on, that makes everyone get and see your replies, even if “group messaging” is turned off. Mine is turned off, and this is driving me nuts.
February 8th, 2011 at 8:22 pm
I have an iphone 3g with ios4 features but i dont hve the group messagin in my settings… And i thnk the problem might b cuz i hav tmobile but im not so sure… U thnk u can help?
February 9th, 2011 at 10:58 am
How can you read a group message when they reply? All I see is my original text and their response says: re: New Message
February 13th, 2011 at 5:40 pm
Do you have group messaging on in iOS 4.2? The only way to read everyone’s group messaging is if they all have it on.
February 13th, 2011 at 5:40 pm
No, unfortunately I don’t know anything about T-Mobile.
March 1st, 2011 at 7:38 pm
Sending to a group on the iPhone you could send it to only 10 ppl when had a nokia 6230 I was able to make a group and send it too Manu more ppl. Also with a blackberry was able to send to more then 10 ppl… Inlove the iPhone but there’s things that apple didn’t catch on to
March 2nd, 2011 at 9:29 am
WHY doesn’t the group texting on iphone give you the option to “LOAD EARLIER MESSAGES” like in a normal text. After a while, as the chat gets longer, it overwrites itself!
March 25th, 2011 at 11:54 am
this group chat changed with one of the updates… but, there’s also the option to turn it off in settings… its not a glitch… it came with the iPhone4
March 25th, 2011 at 9:54 pm
Scott, we know it’s not a glitch. This post was written when iPhone 4 came out and no one knew/knows about it. But you’re right, you can change your settings.
April 17th, 2011 at 3:24 pm
I get the purpose of the feature, and I also understand why a lot of you dislike it. What I don’t understand is if your phones group messaging feature was turned on right after you downloaded the update or if you manually turned the feature on, and if you did maunally turn it on, did you do any research to find out what it actually did before you started using it? When I read “Group Messaging”, it automatically raised a red flag to me.
April 28th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
Group MMSing is now becoming very popular (and I see the need now) – iOS 4.3.2 gives you much more control over group texting/MMS. That said, Fring just created a FREE app where you can VIDEO CHAT with 4 people at once! So, is this the new “group MMS”?
May 26th, 2011 at 7:09 pm
I agree about this being very DANGEROUS!!! One of my friends/supervisor would send MMS texts out and I would respond to him. Little did I know, that Group messaging is default to “ON” mode. So, I would respond to him, thinking it was only being sent to him. Turns out, it was being sent to everyone, including someone I didn’t know. Keep in mind, this iPhone is my work and personal number. This was going on for months and this other person, who I didn’t even know, thought I was harassing him and threatening him because he didn’t know the actual context of the message I was sending to my close friend. He ended up calling and complaining at the place where I work, saying that I was harassing him. Let’s hope I don’t lose my job over some stupid feature I didn’t even know existed, never mind knowing it was off or not.
May 26th, 2011 at 7:54 pm
I have this feature turned on because I use this every once in a while. I do however, wish that it only applied to messages that were outgoing. So here is where I have the problem. My iPhone sends random outgoing group MMS messages and it will do this when I’m not even touching the phone. I have replaced the phone once and they found out that it’s a network issue with Verizon but it still keeps on doing the same thing. I hope that this feature can be tweaked to perform better or be more personalized. Something needs to change!
June 9th, 2011 at 5:04 am
So I’m confused. If u don’t have your group messaging feature on and u still attach say 5 people to a text, those who respond will be sending a text to the 5 other people including me? So no matter if u send it through group messaging or just attaching multiple people to one text, any response will be sent to everyone?
June 15th, 2011 at 8:17 pm
@Kate – no, you need to read the latest and greatest. Sorry if this confused you – this article was written months ago, when it first came out.
Much more control over MMS group chats is available as long as you have iOS 4.3x (and now that iOS 5 is coming, this will be even completely different – all messaging will be in ONE message area – your texts, MMS, instant messaging, etc will now all be in ONE app).
More info? Check out our episodes at front page.
June 17th, 2011 at 11:50 pm
So I have an iPhone 3GS. And I turned my group messaging on and sent a text to 3 people hoping we could all chat at the same time to make plans. Well I wasn’t getting their texts in this “chat room” type thing you guys are talking about, their texts were all showing up separate. How can I get all my friends to talk in one conversation with this feature?
June 26th, 2011 at 1:34 pm
iPhone 3Gs here
Had group messaging OFF
Sent MMS and replies were going to everyone. Had friends asking me who xxx-xxx-xxxx was. Didn’t realize what was going on. How do I ensure this doesn’t happen again?
July 3rd, 2011 at 11:40 am
Quick question: When you send out a Group MMS, will that text also show up in the recipient’s individual text messages from that person? For example, Mary and Jane are friends. If Mary sends out a text to Jane and Sue, will Mary’s text to Jane show up in Jane’s Group MMS and also in Jane’s invidual text messages from Mary previously?
July 29th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
iPhone 3GS, iOS 4.2.1.
I am not using Group Messaging (it is Off in Settings). I was recently told that every time I send a message to multiple people, all recipients can see every other number I sent the message to.
I’ve done a lot of big sends to 8-10 people before (which always count as 8-10 separate text messages on my bill), but now there are privacy concerns because everyone can see who else I am now sending messages to. Co-workers, family, and exes certainly don’t need to know each others’ numbers.
This has already lead to some strange messages sent back and forth between people.
August 9th, 2011 at 1:27 pm
apparently you can only used it if you have att,
i test both my friend and mines and when i put her t-mobile simcard you can’t find this settings, as soon as i pop my sim card to her phone (i have att) the settings pop up. not cool so not all my friends have the chat thingy.!
August 12th, 2011 at 2:54 am
I have a 3gs. I have group messaging turned off. I f I send out a mass text can someone else see the responses. Let’s say I send to Jay & Dee, I have group messaging off, but Dee has her’s turned on, can she see the conversation that me & Jay are having?
August 16th, 2011 at 10:37 pm
@Sue – no, I don’t believe so. Only the creator of the group MMS/SMS (example: Moxie Mo sends a text, like you see in my blog post above, to 4 friends… I can see all of their replies because I have it turned on. If any of them have their Group MMS on, they can see the replies to).
Hope this helps!
Moxie Mo
August 17th, 2011 at 7:30 am
My experience is much like Jason’s above. I turned off group messaging, but still have people complaining that they are getting messages from people they don’t know or I get a reply and it lists all the recipients of the original message. It appears to be doing “group” messaging no matter what I do. I hope this new update makes this better and not worse.
August 18th, 2011 at 4:01 pm
I have a question about group messaging, which I don’t really like. If it we more like email and had a reply or reply to all feature, maybe. My example is: I have group messaging off. I often get texts in group messaging mode from others. I did read that there’s no way to opt out of getting everybody’s response, which is disappointing. So since my group messaging is off but there’s is on, does my response go to everybody as well even though I have mine off? If so this whole thing is really shady because then people are texting people and giving their phone numbers unknowingly to people they don’t know and who they might not want to see their personal response and they have no control over it because it’s the person that sends the group message in the first place who has control.
September 7th, 2011 at 2:07 pm
I find it rude to send a group message to a person who doesn’t realize it and thus replies thinking only the sender will read. My best friend has a tendency to do this and I fear I can’t be candid in any text because who knows if the group string has ended. How can you tell a group conversation is over and you are texting one on one? Another annoying thing about it for the person who isn’t interested in group messaging is that we get to pay for each text of our reply as well as the incoming replies from others in the group.
September 20th, 2011 at 2:52 pm
[...] iOS4 – iPhone Hidden Feature: Group Messaging Bug or SMS/MMS Chat Room? | Moxie Mo Show [...]
October 18th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Found this when I went searching for answers about what just happened to me. Wow. My boyfriend sent me a naughty picture this morning, and it showed up in a separate text thread. I thought that was really strange, since pictures always just get sent to our usual conversation. Then I noticed that it was a “Group MMS” and there was another number.
“… Did you send that picture to more than one person?”
“I didn’t try to… *checks things*”
“So… ***-***-****. What is that?”
“That would be the entry right below yours in my address book. Crap. I have explaining to do and embarrassment to have.”
“And you’re sure you’re not lying to me. =/”
This was followed by 8 texts of apology and a good verbal butt-kicking from me.
Um… Thanks, I guess, iPhone. I shouldn’t have had to find out this way, but I’m glad I know.
Thought I’d share. Maybe someone can find some amusement in my distress.
November 1st, 2011 at 9:32 am
I have the iPhone 3G with iOS4 installed (which btw is a BAD idea!) and I have Group Messaging turned OFF but still when I have more than one recipient selected for a message they all can see each other. The others were all on iPhone 4 in my case, except for me. I think it’s still a bug for older phones using iOS4.
November 9th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
Ther is definitely a problem with this feature. My sis has an iPhone 4 and sends a pic to me, her baby daddy, I dont know who else. All I see is the pic, can’t tell it’s a group message. Send a reply, only to my sis as far as I can tell, and group messaging is turned off. Get an immediate response from the baby daddy: ” why do you keep bcc’ing me on these responses?” he and I do not get along. I ha d no idea and see no way to tell that my reply is going to him too, and apparently this has happened many times now! not a good thing!
November 16th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
This feature is MOST annoying. The iphone 4s does not even have a Group Messaging settings options per the photos at the top, only MMS can be turned on/off. Can’t believe that they haven’t got an option to hide numbers, more importantly for me – leave the conversation. I cringe now when a friend sends me a group message as I know my phone will be inundated with responses from the other recipients
November 30th, 2011 at 11:00 pm
I have a 3GS and the first group message I got after upgrading to OS4 was from a blackberry. I replied and only as it was sending did I notice there were others in the dist list. Not a huge deal since it was just a race result but i can totally see the potential issues so I’m always sure to check for groupMMS. Also it would be good to be able to edit the list when replying so you don’t have to create a new message to reply to just the sender or anything less then replying to all.
December 19th, 2011 at 10:21 am
Hi! I am finding that people are getting upset. They keep forgetting that it is a group message and everyone is getting their response. Most of them do not even know who the other person is? I have a 3G. I turned off the Group messaging however I tested it to see if that stopped and it did not. Please help me turn this feature off other than just not send a group text?
December 25th, 2011 at 11:08 am
How do you know who sent you the original group mms text? My phone just has a recipients list.
December 25th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
It’s a problem. As a recipient, I can’t tell it’s a group message. You might as well call it a way monitor a conversation secretly. Since I can’t see who the message is sent to (or if it’s even got more than one recipient), those “secret” members of the chat see all of the dialogue without me even knowing. In states where both parties much consent to monitoring, it raises legal questions as well.
It’s not safe. It’s not wise. Apple needs to fix it!
January 1st, 2012 at 1:49 pm
A friend of mine sent me a group message from a droid OS. I had “group messaging” turned off in the settings of my Iphone 4S running IOS 5.01. My question is, did my reply go to just my friend, or everyone that he sent the original group message to? On my iphone it looked like a conversation between him and I, but I’m not quite so sure. If it went to others, then I might as well file for divorce.
January 2nd, 2012 at 6:39 pm
i tuned off group messaging and it still acted like a group message with people in the list who had iMessage. i wish it would just send messages to each person as if i typed a separate message to each. blah!!
January 3rd, 2012 at 12:02 am
My question is: When a person sends a group message, am I able to see the other recipients? Thank you, so much to all the “techno-savvy!”
Lesa
Lesa Hill
541-954-2456
(I have iPhone 4S)
January 8th, 2012 at 3:50 am
I have a iPhone 4s and sometimes it randomly starts a group text. It usually happens when I am replying to a text someone sent me (even if they don’t have an apple device with iMessages) it starts a group text even if they sent it as just a text to me, this is confusing and weird to me. Am I doing something wrong or is this just a bug with the network (sprint) or with Apple? If anyone has answers please. Thanks
January 8th, 2012 at 3:54 am
^^^It also sends the group text to numbers I don’t have in my contacts, so people who I do not even know
January 17th, 2012 at 10:19 am
Yesterday on my iphone 3, I sent out a funny pic to 4 people. One friend was talking to another, thinking it was me. She said the message didn’t give her the option to Reply to Sender, so she didn’t even know it was a text to 4 people. Also, I have had people Reply with something out of context to me, but upset everyone else, because the message went to them and they didn’t know that person. Help us Apple!!