The newest iOS 11.3 update enables a feature that asks if you're sure you want to delete a text message/iMessage once you choose the delete option. It's making me crazy! I tried searching through the settings to remove this deletion confirmation, but can't find anything on the topic. Is there any way to remove this feature?
iPhone 7 Plus, iOS 11.2.6, iOS 11.3
Dave in Oxford wrote:
Every so often Apple comes up with a "Feature" that so small and so annoying that begs the question as to whether they ever consult with a user. YES! Delete confirmation is an unnecessary addition to IOS and we can only hope that some security patch will remove it
No, Apple doesn't consult with users. Instead, they see what users do with their phones and often introduce features based on what they perceive as a real need. This is one such feature. Daily, multiple users come here to these user only forums begging for help to recover an accidentally deleted text message. In most cases, the only way to get the message back is to restore from backup, which often people simply don't have.
So, this very small change was introduced to help the countless thousands of users to ensure when they use swipe to delete that they truly do want to delete the message.
Are you aware there is another simple method to delete messages that will not ask you to confirm you want to delete? Yes, Apple provided the best of BOTH worlds to users. Simply use the Edit/Tap Messages(s)/Tap Trash icon and voila, message(s) delete without confirmation. That can't be any more cumbersome could it? It's three steps, just like it was before on swipe to delete.
Again this should be managed in settings with an option to ask for confirmation for those that often delete important text messages by accident. For everyone else who could care less and enjoy lightening the load on their phone and cloud storage - waiving the ability to confirm deletion is nice.
HORRIFYING?! What world do you live in, where taking an extra quarter-second to delete a message thread is HORRIFYING? What is the scale of your world line? This is an anniversary of the death of my teenage son. Two years before he died we found out that had been hit by a car, and was in a coma. He never woke, but died 2 years later. But if a quarter-second is horrifying to you, where on your scale is our experience?
Perhaps it's time to get some perspective.
I JUST updated last night - I always hold out. Wish I had not b/c of this one thing! Did this twice today and then went to Messages settings to see how to turn it off. This is the exact same behavior on the Apple Watch that I recently got, and I HATE it. It is such a waste of my time, and it is annoying as crap on the watch b/c of its size. It is doubly annoying on my phone simply because it is a WORSE implementation of what I (and everyone else) was used to. How did this 'feature' get past anyone at Apple who uses iMessage??
Going to bug report this right now!
ericole wrote:
I JUST updated last night - I always hold out. Wish I had not b/c of this one thing! Did this twice today and then went to Messages settings to see how to turn it off. This is the exact same behavior on the Apple Watch that I recently got, and I HATE it. It is such a waste of my time, and it is annoying as crap on the watch b/c of its size. It is doubly annoying on my phone simply because it is a WORSE implementation of what I (and everyone else) was used to. How did this 'feature' get past anyone at Apple who uses iMessage??
Going to bug report this right now!
OMG - of all the horrible things to happen when an update is done. A nano-second instant swipe, that can also be avoided altogether by simply editing a bunch of them at once and then trashing them. What is the world coming to? Life is just becoming far too much of a burden to bear anymore. What kind of draconian measures are being brought down upon us who already suffer so much? Have they no compassion?
GB
I totally agree with all the complainers. I get way too many text messages to have do do the triple deleting step.... another Apple-forced stupid process. I spent several hours just trying to find out how to stop the extra steps to finally access this message board and learn I am not the only one affected. Oh my, I guess I'll just have to go drown my sorrows in a nice cold Summer Shandy 🙂.
I just hope Apple doesn't "improve" Mail on the Mac and add this "feature" to it. swiping left on my magic trackpad and hitting that delete option is quick and painless. I'd HATE for another button to pup up requiring me to hit delete after that!
So why are you even reading page 43 of 44 on this BAD UI DESIGN which causes wasteful, unnecessary steps and is a regression in usability if you don't care about this? Apparently you have all kinds of free time in the world that you can waste. Many of the rest of us do not and find it utterly asinine when Apple (or any other company) makes a usability change that brings no benefit, and a big downside.
gail from maine wrote:
OMG - of all the horrible things to happen when an update is done. A nano-second instant swipe, that can also be avoided altogether by simply editing a bunch of them at once and then trashing them. What is the world coming to? Life is just becoming far too much of a burden to bear anymore. What kind of draconian measures are being brought down upon us who already suffer so much? Have they no compassion?
GB
Post of the day!
ericole wrote:
I just hope Apple doesn't "improve" Mail on the Mac and add this "feature" to it. swiping left on my magic trackpad and hitting that delete option is quick and painless. I'd HATE for another button to pup up requiring me to hit delete after that!
There is a big difference between Messages and Mail. When you delete mail it goes to a trash folder where it can be recovered. Delete a message and it is gone for all eternity. Which is probably why Apple made this change.
ericole wrote:
Apparently you have all kinds of free time in the world that you can waste. Many of the rest of us do not and find it utterly asinine when Apple (or any other company) makes a usability change that brings no benefit, and a big downside.
In all the time that people like Gail and I have been "wasting" on these forums, we've spent a lot of time explaining to people that, no, those messages they deleted are gone. They are not getting them back. Sorry. So, while this feature may have no benefit to you, who is apparently perfect, who has never deleted something by accident, but, it does to other people. While you may believe its "BAD UI DESIGN", there are, hard though it may be for you to believe, people who disagree with you.
ericole wrote:
So fine, people can disagree, but I don't know how one can disagree that the option to turn off this "feature" is beneficial.
You like to throw softballs, don't you? 😉 Too many options makes for a cluttered and often confusing interface. I suspect that that is one of the reasons behind Apple often not giving people choices.
And, why are you wasting your time telling me this? Tell Apple:
I have "been with Apple" that long, and for much of the time I was using Macs in the early days Jobs wasn't at Apple. That's neither here nor there. There was a time when Apple made the decisions, and gave the appropriate options, to truly enable things to "just work" almost all the time. I was always delighted when I tried to do something that made sense and I thought was intuitive - then I would try it and discover that what I expected to happen, did. That's UI joy. iOS is far from that. Over time the visual cues have been removed (scroll bars, buttons, etc) forcing the user to randomly click stuff to see if something will happen. Bad UI design.
Yes, MacOS and iOS are different, but a lot from iOS has flowed back into MacOS. That's the main reason I'm concerned they will make this same change to Mail or Messages - just for "consistency's" sake.
I have sent in the feedback on this already.
Yes, I know those online manuals are there and I have downloaded some of them - my statement was not fully accurate. How many of Apple's millions of iPhone users do you think know that or even use iBooks? And how much more difficult is it to read an iBook version of a user manual, on the iOS device you are trying to use, than to have something physical or at least on another device?
"Early days"? Are you talking about the days when Scully was CEO?
Even on Mac's there aren't near the options available that Windows and Linux have, it isn't hard to find blogs with people expressing that Windows is for power users while Macs are for sheep who want to be nannied by Apple.
Not as much has flowed back from iOS as a lot of people think. As long as mail can be quickly recovered as has already been explained to you then there will not be any changes. As far as "bad" UI design you must be referring to the transition from iOS 6 to iOS 7. Personally I liked the change and it certainly dramatically reduced the size of the OS kernel and made it faster. I'm not a skeuomorphic fan.
You are aware of the forthcoming iCloud messages? Do you know what it takes to recover a deleted message?
Yes, I'm not sure why people think this is a non-issue. As it was, you had to swipe left, which THEN revealed the delete option. Then you had to TAP to actually delete. That two-step process should be enough to stop people from accidentally deleting something. But now, we have a THIRD step to perform - hitting delete AGAIN.
Maybe people simply live their life in Messages and if they delete a message they didn't mean to then horrible things will happen. I don't. But again, if you flub up a two-step delete process, you can just as easily flub up a 3-step process. All we need is an option to turn off that second "do you really want to delete" option? This kind of process has existed on Windows trash for years, and it's always been an annoyance to me that I couldn't opt to turn off that last-ditch reminder.
iOS 11.3 - Delete Message Confirmation
