What time zone is Send Later?

[msackey]

It only occurred to me today to ask what time zone does Send Later feature for iMessage use?

Here’s an actual scenario:
Tomorrow, I hop on an early flight to Hawaii, some 6 hours behind my locale. I’m going there for work

The day after tomorrow, my husband will join me.

I need to send him a reminder text message that he will get at 3am east coast time. Because I’ll be really busy and because of time zone difference, I don’t want to wait until it is the right time to manually send him the reminder text.

I’m on the east coast right now. I have executed a Send Later message that is set to send him the reminder at 3am. But which 3am is it? East coast or Hawaii? When the message actually sends, I’ll be in Hawaii for over a day already.

 

[MisterSavage]

Wow, I never thought of this scenario. I *assume* it's sent based on your local timezone on the device when you scheduled the send later. But that's just a guess!

 

[msackey]

Wow, I never thought of this scenario. I *assume* it's sent based on your local timezone on the device when you scheduled the send later. But that's just a guess!

Yeah, that’s what I’m guessing too.

But what if the timezone auto-adjusts (floats)? For instance, I’m on the east coast and I create a Send Later to be sent on 11/17 at 3AM EST. But because by the time I get to my destination I’m 6 hours behind, what if Send Later uses a floating timezone and it interprets 3AM as 3AM Hawaii time (which then means 9AM EST before it sends that message). That would be a bit of a disaster because my husband would have already been in the air and that text message would be practically not useful any more.

Hmm….

 

[NoBoMac]

Since stored on Apple servers, don't think it will notice that the device timezone changed.

Schedule a message on iPhone to send later

Schedule a message to send later on iPhone.

support.apple.com

Note: Scheduled messages are encrypted and stored on Apple servers only until they’re sent. When a message is sent, it’s removed from Apple servers, the balloon becomes a solid color, and its dashed line disappears.

And:

You need to be online to reschedule, edit, or delete a scheduled message.

Which, to me, implies that will send even if phone off, ergo, using whatever local time was setup initially.

 

[waw74]

maybe check it when you get to Hawaii?

see if the send time that's displayed changes once you're there
or you have a stopover in the middle you could check there.

I just did a test,
scheduled a send later, then went in and manually changed the time zone, had to force quit messages, but the time did adjust to reflect the original send time (scheduled for noon in eastern, changed timezone to pacific time, after the messages restart it showed 9am)

so you should probably schedule for 3am before you leave.

 

[mathiasinthe314]

I had this same question when I traveled from Missouri to England a couple months ago. It sent based on the time zone I was in at the time of the message. Scheduled for 3pm English time and arrived 9am CST.

 

[msackey]

thank you all for testing and finding out!! Much appreciated!

 

[vultuk]

Out of interest, why a text message? Surely this would be solved by using Reminders or Calendars?

 

[msackey]

Out of interest, why a text message? Surely this would be solved by using Reminders or Calendars?

Because a reminder or calendar event means I need access to his calendar or Reminder app. While we are able to access each other’s personal devices, we don’t unless really needed. So it feels intrusive when an alternative solution exists.

Or if you mean why not set my own reminder that prompts me to send a message to him at the appropriate time, the reason is mental burden.

I have a lot going on so if there are things I can accomplish (check off my list) the better. The automated tool allows for this.

——

By the way, I’ve confirmed that Send Later uses the time zone in which you originally created that Send Later message.

When I landed in Hawaii, I could see my Send Later message’s time had shifted to correspond to Hawaii time.

 

[Rayansb]

I did experiment with this months ago, it 100% uses the local time zone of the sending iphone.

 

[NoBoMac]

Because a reminder or calendar event means I need access to his calendar or Reminder app.

I might be reading too much into the other member’s post, but maybe they were thinking of using shared Reminders, Calendars?

But what ever works works.

 

[msackey]

I might be reading too much into the other member’s post, but maybe they were thinking of using shared Reminders, Calendars?

But what ever works works.

Yes, shared Reminders and shared Calendars could work, though that’s not our workflow. We don’t share a calendar and I don’t really use Reminders; I use OmniFocus. But yes, those are other options.

 

[ManuCH]

I don't know about scheduled messages, but scheduled Shortcuts use the local time zone of the phone.