Apple’s iOS 16 Will Address Annoying Reaction Texts

Users who are familiar with being in a text message group chat that has iOS and Android participants spread all over would probably have a deep understanding of how annoying reaction texts sent from iPhone users can usually be. Such annoying messages users receive are formatted as Person A Liked/Disliked “Person B’s message.” After Google implemented a workaround on its own side of the text message app on Android earlier in the year to support iMessage reactions, Apple is equally doing the same with iOS 16. After updates of the iOS 16 goes public, whenever someone responded to a text using one of iMessage’s emoji reactions known as Tapbacks, the app would now display the emoji attached to the side of the message

The feature was first spotted by 9to5Mac and has been tweeted by an Apple employee. This feature is one of the many Messages updates Apple’s iOS 16 and macOS Ventura will be showcasing to users. While the highlights of the feature including message editing, mark unread and retractions were all detailed at Apple’s WWDC keynote address on Monday, this new feature called the “SMS Tapback Inference” was not disclosed.

Tapbacks were first introduced to the iOS 10 in 2016. iOS 10 ushered the iMessage with the most defining upgrade ever with features like full-screen message effects and stickers. Six years after while the new iOS debuts with even more exciting features compared to that. Even though upgrades like the ability to edit / unsend messages are coming, Apple is yet to roll out RCS support, a SMS-successor messaging technology Google is focused on. Apple isn’t looking to roll it out perhaps because RCS is too similar to iMessage with its features like typing indicators, read receipts, higher quality picture messages and more.