How do I tell when an SMS has been sent?

[Nermal]

In iOS 9, sending an SMS would pop up a little green progress bar. When that bar disappeared, you knew that the message had been sent.

In iOS 10, that bar is no longer present by default and I haven't been able to find a way to bring it back.

I live in a weak coverage area and it's fairly common for messages to fail to send, but under 10 I don't know how to tell whether they've succeeded, short of leaving the Messages app open for 20 seconds and checking that the red "!" doesn't appear. Obviously that's not ideal! How can I tell whether an SMS message has finished sending?

 

[rmeadejr]

It's odd on my iPhone 50% of the time I get the bar in iMessage and SMS. I wish I had an answer for you.

I have a Gold 32gb 7 Plus iPhone.

 

[Nermal]

Hmm. There are a few iPhone users in the office so I'll ask whether they get the progress bar. I assumed that it was gone, but maybe not!

 

[simonsi]

On 10 I don't get the progress bar on the iOS 10 app but I do still see it on my Mac Messages so I assume the logic/monitoring is still there in the background. I do get the same "Message failed" if its unable to send though so unless I get that, its sent but not so good for checking at the time of sending...

 

[rmeadejr]

I just tested something. Try sending a pic and after hitting send it then pops up.

 

[Feenician]

The bar for SMS, MMS and iMessage now appears after only a couple of seconds (approximately). If the message takes longer than that, the bar appears. This leaves the user hanging until the device is ready to confirm whether there's a delay, which isn't a great design imo. Better the old way.

 

[Suckfest 9001]

Feenician is correct. If you don't see a bar after a few seconds, it was delivered.

 

[Feenician]

I think they probably had the idea they were "freeing" the user from watching the bar but it has the opposite effect. Though SMS and iMessage are very reliable and rarely fail we've all had that message, "Why didn't you text me!? ", "I.. I did. It just didn't send ", "Yeah, right " and so we look to see if our message has gone, especially if it's important. All this change does to those of us who do that is leave us hanging a bit longer to see what happened. Like I said, better the old way

 

[Nermal]

Thanks for the detective work. I'm going to log an enhancement request, because I too think that there should be an option to bring the bar back.

 

[Nermal]

I'm going to log an enhancement request

... which Apple has rejected right off the bat.

 

[C DM]

... which Apple has rejected right off the bat.

Any reason/explanation?

 

[Nermal]

Nope, just the generic "Thank you for your feedback. Engineering has determined that this issue behaves as intended."

 

[C DM]

Nope, just the generic "Thank you for your feedback. Engineering has determined that this issue behaves as intended."

I see. It sounds like that was done by design then, most likely as described in an earlier reply at https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/how-do-i-tell-when-an-sms-has-been-sent.2002631/#post-23634543 Hard to say what the reasoning for it might be other than Apple just wanting people to send and not worry in most cases and thus not wait for and really pay attention to the send status bar unless it really needs to come into play (if the message is taking longer to send). But leaving it there for messages that are sent quickly, like before, doesn't seem like it would get in the way really.

 

[MS_Hedrick]

Nope, just the generic "Thank you for your feedback. Engineering has determined that this issue behaves as intended."

If the engineering intention was to create uncertainly, then mission accomplished

 

[Shirasaki]

I think they probably had the idea they were "freeing" the user from watching the bar but it has the opposite effect. Though SMS and iMessage are very reliable and rarely fail we've all had that message, "Why didn't you text me!? ", "I.. I did. It just didn't send ", "Yeah, right " and so we look to see if our message has gone, especially if it's important. All this change does to those of us who do that is leave us hanging a bit longer to see what happened. Like I said, better the old way

Your entire message just brings me a good laugh. Thanks.

Nope, just the generic "Thank you for your feedback. Engineering has determined that this issue behaves as intended."

Lol. Just screw customers as it won't hurt anyone else.

If the engineering intention was to create uncertainly, then mission accomplished

haha!