Remove user icon in iMessage

Question

Level 1

14 points

Remove user icon in iMessage

With iOS 9, when using iMessage, a grey circle with a persons initials shows up next to their name, or if you have the persons picture than their profile pic shows up there.

Is there a way to get rid of this?

I really find the grey circles to be fantastically ugly, and I really don't want to go track down business contacts, etc to add their photo...so I would just like to disable that whole useless feature.

Or if someone can point out the value in the feature to me, maybe I can see the use for...but as of today, if I am texting with my friend "Jason", I don't see any merit to having a grey circle with a "J" in it.

Thank you.

iPhone 6, iOS 9

Posted on Sep 17, 2015 4:26 PM

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Answer 1

Sep 22, 2015 9:47 PM in response to kevinthedude

kevinthedude wrote:

What is the solution to this problem? How can we get rid of it?

No, you cannot get rid of it.

Submit your feedback to Apple requesting the ability to do that here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback

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Answer 2

Sep 23, 2015 7:59 AM in response to Kilgore-Trout

For me I get a lot of messages for work and sometimes I just read the preview to see what's most important. Just feel for me having a clean simple look in the message app is more important. I reduced text size to get things back to normal. So other than larger app icons, doesn't seem to be an issue.

Im sure apple will have a setting for it in the future but might be a temporary solution for those in the same boat.

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Answer 3

Oct 22, 2015 1:05 PM in response to MadhouseNY

MadhouseNY wrote:

I am happy to report that the new iOS9.1 has an option to "show contact photos" in Messages. Turn this off and it solves this ridiculous issue!

Another example of how using Feedback can help.

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Answer 4

Sep 17, 2015 7:52 PM in response to Jordan811

completely agree. This is annoying.

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Answer 5

Sep 22, 2015 9:37 PM in response to Jordan811

I'm having the same issue. So many contacts and obviously due to work, I don't have nor want their pictures.

What is the solution to this problem? How can we get rid of it?

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Answer 6

Sep 23, 2015 7:50 AM in response to Jordan811

So I found a temp solution. Go to settings>display and brightness>And under "view" switch to zommed. It makes everything bigger but at least picture icons don't show up in message app.

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