Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

imaginex20

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jun 17, 2009
1,514
724
Now that Messages can be sent to a phone number and email for specific contacts, I think the Messages should show the email/phone number under the contact's name to indicate which message thread you're replying to. Sometimes it is confusing to get a message from a person's phone number then you get a separate message thread from their email but its two different conversations and I end up replying to their email going to their laptop instead of the phone.

Attached is a little mockup of what I am trying to convey.
 

Attachments

  • messages_concept.jpg
    messages_concept.jpg
    64.4 KB · Views: 123
Now that Messages can be sent to a phone number and email for specific contacts, I think the Messages should show the email/phone number under the contact's name to indicate which message thread you're replying to. Sometimes it is confusing to get a message from a person's phone number then you get a separate message thread from their email but its two different conversations and I end up replying to their email going to their laptop instead of the phone.

Attached is a little mockup of what I am trying to convey.

There's just not enough space at this time, sadly. Even that would be brutal to use (your mockup).
 
I definitely wouldn't mind some sort of indication. If you scroll to the top of the thread and tap the Contact button it will highlight what it is coming from, but that is hardly "at a glance".
 
In an ideal situation, everyone has just their email or just their phone number set as their iMessage ID on all their devices, so none of this confusion would happen, but that's sadly not the case usually. I do agree that on iOS the threads should merge the contact together just like on OS X, simply indicating when the recipient address has changed during a bunch of messages.
 
What if they combined both messages to a persons phone (if it's not iMessage) and iMessages in the same thread that way each person in your contacts would have just one thread. The color of the persons name would show whether its iMessage or an sms and by tapping on their name it would bring up different numbers/emails that you could change to for that person.
 
What if they combined both messages to a persons phone (if it's not iMessage) and iMessages in the same thread that way each person in your contacts would have just one thread. The color of the persons name would show whether its iMessage or an sms and by tapping on their name it would bring up different numbers/emails that you could change to for that person.

I hope this comes true, but it could get tricky. For example, if someone had iMessage for their iPad but didn't own an iPhone. Having one thread wouldn't work, as it would need to be sent as both an SMS and an iMessage. I wonder if that's what Apple would do - but unlikely as they don't already do that when someone in a group message has iMessage turned off, any messages get sent individually as messages and not to the group.
 
What if they combined both messages to a persons phone (if it's not iMessage) and iMessages in the same thread that way each person in your contacts would have just one thread. The color of the persons name would show whether its iMessage or an sms and by tapping on their name it would bring up different numbers/emails that you could change to for that person.

Yep, I want something like this.
 
I hope this comes true, but it could get tricky. For example, if someone had iMessage for their iPad but didn't own an iPhone. Having one thread wouldn't work, as it would need to be sent as both an SMS and an iMessage. I wonder if that's what Apple would do - but unlikely as they don't already do that when someone in a group message has iMessage turned off, any messages get sent individually as messages and not to the group.

For people with only iMessage or sms that would only be the only option available.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.