12 ms·

Delayed Messages on iOS

214 points by karagenit 4y ago

MBCook 4y ago
I understand why Apple is hesitant to add the feature. But this is a fantastic shortcut to get around the limitation.
- Dracophoenix 4y ago
  I don't. Why is Apple hesitant exactly?
  - alphaomegacode 4y ago
    Me neither, can't see "the obvious" reason for them not implementing this. Apple usually trots out "privacy" or "security" when people find their software lacking in terms of usability or convenience but I can't understand why this would be an issue for them.
- samatman 4y ago
  Why would they be hesitant? Complex user experience? I'll admit I've never scheduled a message for later, other than on Twitter since I've lived in some awkward time zones relative to the bulk of my mutuals. But I can't come up with a reason why Apple wouldn't want to add it.
  - hackernewds 4y ago
    Spam
    - samatman 4y ago
      This one I'm not seeing. Spam is about volume, how does this help a spammer spam more if it takes longer than just sending a message, which presumably it would?
  - jpp 4y ago
    I can imagine a number of complications here. How should delayed send work with respect to both end-to-end encryption and with network connectivity loss? Ie I can see a possible way to build this where the sending user’s device queues and sends it later, but what if that device is out of network coverage area, or battery-dead, at the requested send time? …so then we could think about doing it at the server level, but then to maintain end-to-end encryption, the message would have to be pre-encrypted; how would we handle rekeying a user? Ie if the delay send is for 24 hours from now, but one of the recipient’s keys get rotated (which afaik can happen in a couple of reasonable conditions; but others here will know more)… well, we end up with a solution that also can’t reliably deliver the message. One thing I really appreciate about Apple Messages is just how well it works, and how little spam ever makes it in. I think the reliability of Messages is almost taken for granted… I wouldn’t want to give that reliability promise up for this sort of feature!
    - yieldcrv 4y ago
      Sounds like someone recently studied system design interviews, did the compensation bump work out?
    - texaslonghorn5 4y ago
      Maybe I am missing something obvious/important. Google Messages delay send will not send the message if the phone is off/disconnected. What's wrong with Apple Messages setting up delayed messages just like that? You said reliability. But Google Messages delay has worked 100% of the time for me and I've never had a situation where the phone was off when it needed so maybe I am the wrong person to ask. Is there a way to have the timestamp part be unencrypted and the message be encrypted or does that violate end to end policy? Though I like being able to cancel/edit until the send deadline so from my perspective it's best to keep on the sender device as long as possible and send only at the last possible second.
      - MBCook 4y ago
        But iMessage is synced between devices. So if I delay a send on my iPhone and lose network, my other Apple devices know enough they could still send it. Should they (I asked to send) or not (‘sending’ device offline)?
  - MBCook 4y ago
    What does the receiving user see? Do they know it was scheduled? If not they may expect me to start responding when I may be unavailable. What happens to read status (when on)? I haven’t read your last X messages but I did send one to you? That’s off. Can it be canceled? How does this interact with the new function in iOS 16 letting you edit and delete after send? Can I schedule send on my iPhone but edit before send on my iPad? What if I schedule send and lose network. Then I edit on both my iPhone and iPad to show different things but they’re both off network. Not they both come back. What gets sent? What if the ‘wrong one’ comes back first? Does it work with SMS? Lots of weird complications to think about.
    - samatman 4y ago
      Personally, I would solve all of these by pushing the message up, like sending it, but with colors that make it clear that it's suspended, and a clock icon, which shows when it will send. Long press the message to get a context menu: edit, delete, reschedule, send now. As for sync and all that, whatever algorithm they use for Notes is fine with me. I would expect the message itself to be living in iCloud until it's sent, so most of the questions about losing network connectivity or not having battery life wouldn't apply. So no, no SMS: support for SMS in Messages is an afterthought and I would in fact prefer two different apps, although I might be the only one who feels that way.
      - jeroenhd 4y ago
        Telegram's implementation shows a little calendar icon next to the text input when you've planned a message, which takes you to a list of planned messages you can interact with like any other message. This solves the problem of your message appearing right in the middle of already sent messages or your message constantly bubbling down as a real-time conversation takes place. I think it works quite well.
    - jeroenhd 4y ago
      Using Telegram as a reference: - In the notification: yes. In the chat view: no. I don't know why it matters, though. If you expect an immediate response, you should probably use a more asynchronous communication method (many email platforms can hold messages for you). That doesn't seem like a reason to not make the feature available, though. - That's a possible state regardless, unless the client must always have a full database of all received messages before new messages come in; most messaging apps seem to support a "fragmented" read state and I doubt iOS's messenger doesn't. - Yes - I don't see the problem here. Replace the message in the queue using an account+message identifier/cryptographic signature/magical pixie dust. - Yes - If the message is sent by the server at the scheduled time, this isn't a problem. If you rely on individual devices (Google's implementation), you may end up sending a duplicate. I doubt this'll happen that often in practice. - Depends on the implementation; the server will probably keep the "correct" version to send. - Probably not? There are tons of features that don't work with SMS though. I haven't used SMS for years, but Google's Messages app has delayed messages and a web client, so this seems like a solved enough problem for those still using SMS. Several chat apps, including SMS apps, have this feature already. E2EE adds a layer of complexity but even that can be fixed with existing technology.
  - glacials 4y ago
    I'll take a crack here: they believe the need should be solved elsehow. They see the "I want to send a message later because I don't want to bug anybody" need as better solved from the other end: "I don't want to be bugged because I'm asleep/busy/whatever".
- pixelrevision 4y ago
  I’d prefer it on long press to those 5 “it’s a party” things I can send.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
thunfischbrot 4y ago
> so I had come to depend on it in my daily workflow. It’s especially useful in situations where I have a work-related thought at 3AM and don’t want to risk waking up and annoying my co-workers. At first glance this seems like a perfect match for e-mail instead of iMessage or SMS. From least to most urgent: Postcard E-Mail Slack iMessage SMS Call
- fragmede 4y ago
  Not to mention, (some) email has a send later feature.
LeonenTheDK 4y ago
Another common feature of a default app that Apple lacks is having multiple timers on the iPhone clock app. Most often used by my partner when cooking and there are a couple things going that need different times. This is a feature in my Pixel and I just can't understand what reason there is to not include it. That said though, this is a fantastic work around, I love seeing clever uses of tools to make them do things their creators (probably) didn't necessarily intend.
- kmlx 4y ago
  > Another common feature of a default app that Apple lacks is having multiple timers on the iPhone clock app. siri supports this. i mainly use it when cooking and need multiple timers.
  - hgazx 4y ago
    It doesn’t allow me to do this. If I ask to create a timer and then ask to create another I’m asked if I want to replace the previous one.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Not on iPhone.
- ezfe 4y ago
  The HomePod and Watch both support multiple timers, which makes it more baffling
  - sgt 4y ago
    The teams did not communicate
    - tekchip 4y ago
      The clock app team probably had the thought to add it at 3am but couldn't schedule an iMessage to remind their teammates to implement it.
null0pointer 4y ago
When shortcuts were first released I immediately tried to implement delayed messaging too. In the end I wasn’t able to get it working and gave up. Great job finding this workaround!
tumdum_ 4y ago
Work though at 3am? Sounds like a really unhealthy relationship with work. Not surprised author is from states.
- stuartd 4y ago
  Some people (like me) are wide awake at 3AM and have work thoughts then. Others are asleep - we’re all different. I tend to use email drafts or email myself the text with a note to forward it.
- a-dub 4y ago
  > Work though at 3am? Sounds like a really unhealthy relationship with work. Not surprised author is from states. it's common for creative individual contributors to work late and often those kinds of people do their best work late. i'd argue that the way it can become unhealthy is when rigid early work hours lead to sleep deprivation which can damage performance, well-being and overall stability.
texaslonghorn5 4y ago
I think this is a cool hack. And I frequently use delayed messages on Google Messages to obscure my late working hours and refrain from disturbing people with a 3AM notification. But I've thought about this a bit recently, and I don't think I should have to worry about bothering someone at 3 AM. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect other people to have do not disturb on / notifications off whenever they don't want to be disturbed. And one cautionary tale about scheduling messages (email in particular): I once encountered a problem at 3AM and scheduled an 8AM text to tell someone about it, but they woke up at 6AM and immediately fixed it and were confused why I still had the problem two hours later (when my message arrived).
- Xeoncross 4y ago
  Yeah, it's really weird to have to guess the settings other people desire. That's why do not disturb on / notifications off is on each of our phones. We control that. I don't expect other people to figure out the right timezone and sleep patterns I have.
- axg11 4y ago
  That’s idealism whereas this hack deals with realism: many people don’t have their notifications setup perfectly and also feel the pressure to respond immediately.
  - lesstyzing 4y ago
    Why’s that the message sender’s problem though? I can’t help if you pressure yourself even if I’m clear I’m putting none on you.
    - TheNorthman 4y ago
      > I can’t help if you pressure yourself even if I’m clear I’m putting none on you. That's... exactly what this is about. Now you _can_ help it.
    - ketzo 4y ago
      I would argue that, in most social contexts, “receiving a message” does put some amount of pressure on a person. Unless you have a really explicit understanding with the person you’re texting, they’re gonna assume you expect a response, or just expect them to read the message. You gotta know how your actions will be received; “I can’t help you” really just isn’t enough if you wanna be a kind and thoughtful person, IMO.
rsync 4y ago
I usually send sms from the Unix shell so a delayed message takes the form of: sleep 7200 ; sms … (Where ‘sms’ is a shell script that hits the twilio api with curl) If I drop my phone in the river I can still send sms from my own phone number. Not “blue” bubble though…
- avel 4y ago
  You could use at(1) instead, so that you don't need to keep that terminal process open.
yieldcrv 4y ago
forget work, This would be useful for texting someone you’re interested in that would be wary of someone that text at an odd hour or “too soon”, just send the thing you are thinking of at the time but set a delay!
green-salt 4y ago
I feel like this is trying to dodge IM and email noise fatigue and having that bleed into texts. I'm nocturnal when I have the choice so I understand, but would definitely mute a coworker if they regularly texted me on a schedule for when I wake up.
yardstick 4y ago
> It’s especially useful in situations where I have a work-related thought at 3AM and don’t want to risk waking up and annoying my co-workers. Just send an email? If it doesn’t require an immediate response, use email. Also if it’s iPhone to iPhone you likely won’t interrupt the other user since they would/should have night mode on anyway.
- blinded 4y ago
  Similar to other notifications, I feel its up to the recienver to control their notification in a way that makes sense to them.
  - hkpack 4y ago
    Some teams doesn’t have dedicated on-call engineer, so message as 3am may mean something may be urgent. At least it would be difficult to resist looking at what is going on. E-mail is way to go in this situation. Also, sender will be unavailable to reply for additional info, while appearing to be online.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - nicoburns 4y ago
      The obvious solution to this is to have a separate communication channel for critically urgent/important messages.
- macintux 4y ago
  I don’t have access to corporate email on my phone, although I’d probably use Slack instead of a text.
- prmoustache 4y ago
  We like it or not, spam, corporate and commercial harassment made so that many people have dropped email for most intra team communication a long time ago and barely check it or only once a week.
vimy 4y ago
You can make a new shortcut that is triggered by a specific hour. Not sure why this post says it can’t be done. I used it last month to wish someone happy birthday.
ideamotor 4y ago
I find as I get older, I want to simplify. I know setting this up would be easy but it’s just one more thing to mess with that isn’t tackling a fundamental issue. The fundamental issue here is why you want to send delayed messages not how.
- xyst 4y ago
  In my one case, I act as the custodian of the mobile internet provider. the more people I have on my plan, the less everybody else pays (plus much higher leverage w/ the provider). I pay the provider directly, and every individual is expected to pay me their share (including any installment plans on phones). Instead of manually typing out and sending a response to everybody. Now I can just setup this automation and it will send out my reminder every month. That's 6-7 minutes I save every month just for this use case.
xyst 4y ago
very useful, thanks for sharing! I ended up configuring the shortcut to use the location field rather than title field. So at least my calendar won't look odd. Still works as expected. I wasn't entirely sure how to format the text field so it would pick up the phone numbers (in case of group messages). So I just went with my gut and used a space separator for each distinct number and typed the fully qualified number (ie, +1YYYXXXZZZZ)
EGreg 4y ago
For what it's worth, our "Groups" app (which has been downloaded by 10 million people in 95+ countries) has offered this kind of feature for years. It lets you set reminders to send mass messages to people. It also does things like list contacts by the time you met them, so if you went to a party last night or a week ago, you can see who you have to follow up with. We meant to turn it into a full-fledged ORM, but we got busy with the Qbix Platform. Anyway, if you want to give it a try, go here: https://qbix.com/GROUPS https://qbix.com/GROUPS
sbaildon 4y ago
There’s an automation that’s triggered when you receive an email. Coupled with Mail’s “Send later” feature in iOS 16 and some parsing, you can send messages at any time you want.
avnigo 4y ago
Adding a new calendar for this seems odd. You can skip that step and load your messages from the Notes app, or use something like Data Jar [0] to store your messages in the desired structure, alongside the phone number and date/time you expect them to go out on (assuming you have set multiple automations throughout the day that would check if a message needs to be sent out that hour). Admittedly this is still a bit hacky, but good to see that it's possible. [0]: https://datajar.app/ https://datajar.app/
kritr 4y ago
This is a really fun feature. I used this to make automatic birthday messages based on the birthday’s calendar. Since the contacts app syncs with the birthday calendar, it’s easy enough to map names to phone numbers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gXL1S4MnyE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gXL1S4MnyE

214 points by karagenit 4y ago

MBCook 4y ago

I understand why Apple is hesitant to add the feature. But this is a fantastic shortcut to get around the limitation.

Dracophoenix 4y ago
I don't. Why is Apple hesitant exactly?
- alphaomegacode 4y ago
  Me neither, can't see "the obvious" reason for them not implementing this. Apple usually trots out "privacy" or "security" when people find their software lacking in terms of usability or convenience but I can't understand why this would be an issue for them.
samatman 4y ago
Why would they be hesitant? Complex user experience? I'll admit I've never scheduled a message for later, other than on Twitter since I've lived in some awkward time zones relative to the bulk of my mutuals. But I can't come up with a reason why Apple wouldn't want to add it.
- hackernewds 4y ago
  Spam
  - samatman 4y ago
    This one I'm not seeing. Spam is about volume, how does this help a spammer spam more if it takes longer than just sending a message, which presumably it would?
- jpp 4y ago
  I can imagine a number of complications here. How should delayed send work with respect to both end-to-end encryption and with network connectivity loss? Ie I can see a possible way to build this where the sending user’s device queues and sends it later, but what if that device is out of network coverage area, or battery-dead, at the requested send time? …so then we could think about doing it at the server level, but then to maintain end-to-end encryption, the message would have to be pre-encrypted; how would we handle rekeying a user? Ie if the delay send is for 24 hours from now, but one of the recipient’s keys get rotated (which afaik can happen in a couple of reasonable conditions; but others here will know more)… well, we end up with a solution that also can’t reliably deliver the message. One thing I really appreciate about Apple Messages is just how well it works, and how little spam ever makes it in. I think the reliability of Messages is almost taken for granted… I wouldn’t want to give that reliability promise up for this sort of feature!
  - yieldcrv 4y ago
    Sounds like someone recently studied system design interviews, did the compensation bump work out?
  - texaslonghorn5 4y ago
    Maybe I am missing something obvious/important. Google Messages delay send will not send the message if the phone is off/disconnected. What's wrong with Apple Messages setting up delayed messages just like that? You said reliability. But Google Messages delay has worked 100% of the time for me and I've never had a situation where the phone was off when it needed so maybe I am the wrong person to ask. Is there a way to have the timestamp part be unencrypted and the message be encrypted or does that violate end to end policy? Though I like being able to cancel/edit until the send deadline so from my perspective it's best to keep on the sender device as long as possible and send only at the last possible second.
    - MBCook 4y ago
      But iMessage is synced between devices. So if I delay a send on my iPhone and lose network, my other Apple devices know enough they could still send it. Should they (I asked to send) or not (‘sending’ device offline)?
- MBCook 4y ago
  What does the receiving user see? Do they know it was scheduled? If not they may expect me to start responding when I may be unavailable. What happens to read status (when on)? I haven’t read your last X messages but I did send one to you? That’s off. Can it be canceled? How does this interact with the new function in iOS 16 letting you edit and delete after send? Can I schedule send on my iPhone but edit before send on my iPad? What if I schedule send and lose network. Then I edit on both my iPhone and iPad to show different things but they’re both off network. Not they both come back. What gets sent? What if the ‘wrong one’ comes back first? Does it work with SMS? Lots of weird complications to think about.
  - samatman 4y ago
    Personally, I would solve all of these by pushing the message up, like sending it, but with colors that make it clear that it's suspended, and a clock icon, which shows when it will send. Long press the message to get a context menu: edit, delete, reschedule, send now. As for sync and all that, whatever algorithm they use for Notes is fine with me. I would expect the message itself to be living in iCloud until it's sent, so most of the questions about losing network connectivity or not having battery life wouldn't apply. So no, no SMS: support for SMS in Messages is an afterthought and I would in fact prefer two different apps, although I might be the only one who feels that way.
    - jeroenhd 4y ago
      Telegram's implementation shows a little calendar icon next to the text input when you've planned a message, which takes you to a list of planned messages you can interact with like any other message. This solves the problem of your message appearing right in the middle of already sent messages or your message constantly bubbling down as a real-time conversation takes place. I think it works quite well.
  - jeroenhd 4y ago
    Using Telegram as a reference: - In the notification: yes. In the chat view: no. I don't know why it matters, though. If you expect an immediate response, you should probably use a more asynchronous communication method (many email platforms can hold messages for you). That doesn't seem like a reason to not make the feature available, though. - That's a possible state regardless, unless the client must always have a full database of all received messages before new messages come in; most messaging apps seem to support a "fragmented" read state and I doubt iOS's messenger doesn't. - Yes - I don't see the problem here. Replace the message in the queue using an account+message identifier/cryptographic signature/magical pixie dust. - Yes - If the message is sent by the server at the scheduled time, this isn't a problem. If you rely on individual devices (Google's implementation), you may end up sending a duplicate. I doubt this'll happen that often in practice. - Depends on the implementation; the server will probably keep the "correct" version to send. - Probably not? There are tons of features that don't work with SMS though. I haven't used SMS for years, but Google's Messages app has delayed messages and a web client, so this seems like a solved enough problem for those still using SMS. Several chat apps, including SMS apps, have this feature already. E2EE adds a layer of complexity but even that can be fixed with existing technology.
- glacials 4y ago
  I'll take a crack here: they believe the need should be solved elsehow. They see the "I want to send a message later because I don't want to bug anybody" need as better solved from the other end: "I don't want to be bugged because I'm asleep/busy/whatever".
pixelrevision 4y ago
I’d prefer it on long press to those 5 “it’s a party” things I can send.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

thunfischbrot 4y ago

> so I had come to depend on it in my daily workflow. It’s especially useful in situations where I have a work-related thought at 3AM and don’t want to risk waking up and annoying my co-workers. At first glance this seems like a perfect match for e-mail instead of iMessage or SMS. From least to most urgent: Postcard E-Mail Slack iMessage SMS Call

fragmede 4y ago
Not to mention, (some) email has a send later feature.

LeonenTheDK 4y ago

Another common feature of a default app that Apple lacks is having multiple timers on the iPhone clock app. Most often used by my partner when cooking and there are a couple things going that need different times. This is a feature in my Pixel and I just can't understand what reason there is to not include it. That said though, this is a fantastic work around, I love seeing clever uses of tools to make them do things their creators (probably) didn't necessarily intend.

kmlx 4y ago
> Another common feature of a default app that Apple lacks is having multiple timers on the iPhone clock app. siri supports this. i mainly use it when cooking and need multiple timers.
- hgazx 4y ago
  It doesn’t allow me to do this. If I ask to create a timer and then ask to create another I’m asked if I want to replace the previous one.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Not on iPhone.
ezfe 4y ago
The HomePod and Watch both support multiple timers, which makes it more baffling
- sgt 4y ago
  The teams did not communicate
  - tekchip 4y ago
    The clock app team probably had the thought to add it at 3am but couldn't schedule an iMessage to remind their teammates to implement it.

null0pointer 4y ago

When shortcuts were first released I immediately tried to implement delayed messaging too. In the end I wasn’t able to get it working and gave up. Great job finding this workaround!

tumdum_ 4y ago

Work though at 3am? Sounds like a really unhealthy relationship with work. Not surprised author is from states.

stuartd 4y ago
Some people (like me) are wide awake at 3AM and have work thoughts then. Others are asleep - we’re all different. I tend to use email drafts or email myself the text with a note to forward it.
a-dub 4y ago
> Work though at 3am? Sounds like a really unhealthy relationship with work. Not surprised author is from states. it's common for creative individual contributors to work late and often those kinds of people do their best work late. i'd argue that the way it can become unhealthy is when rigid early work hours lead to sleep deprivation which can damage performance, well-being and overall stability.

texaslonghorn5 4y ago

I think this is a cool hack. And I frequently use delayed messages on Google Messages to obscure my late working hours and refrain from disturbing people with a 3AM notification. But I've thought about this a bit recently, and I don't think I should have to worry about bothering someone at 3 AM. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect other people to have do not disturb on / notifications off whenever they don't want to be disturbed. And one cautionary tale about scheduling messages (email in particular): I once encountered a problem at 3AM and scheduled an 8AM text to tell someone about it, but they woke up at 6AM and immediately fixed it and were confused why I still had the problem two hours later (when my message arrived).

Xeoncross 4y ago
Yeah, it's really weird to have to guess the settings other people desire. That's why do not disturb on / notifications off is on each of our phones. We control that. I don't expect other people to figure out the right timezone and sleep patterns I have.
axg11 4y ago
That’s idealism whereas this hack deals with realism: many people don’t have their notifications setup perfectly and also feel the pressure to respond immediately.
- lesstyzing 4y ago
  Why’s that the message sender’s problem though? I can’t help if you pressure yourself even if I’m clear I’m putting none on you.
  - TheNorthman 4y ago
    > I can’t help if you pressure yourself even if I’m clear I’m putting none on you. That's... exactly what this is about. Now you _can_ help it.
  - ketzo 4y ago
    I would argue that, in most social contexts, “receiving a message” does put some amount of pressure on a person. Unless you have a really explicit understanding with the person you’re texting, they’re gonna assume you expect a response, or just expect them to read the message. You gotta know how your actions will be received; “I can’t help you” really just isn’t enough if you wanna be a kind and thoughtful person, IMO.

rsync 4y ago

I usually send sms from the Unix shell so a delayed message takes the form of: sleep 7200 ; sms … (Where ‘sms’ is a shell script that hits the twilio api with curl) If I drop my phone in the river I can still send sms from my own phone number. Not “blue” bubble though…

avel 4y ago
You could use at(1) instead, so that you don't need to keep that terminal process open.

yieldcrv 4y ago

forget work, This would be useful for texting someone you’re interested in that would be wary of someone that text at an odd hour or “too soon”, just send the thing you are thinking of at the time but set a delay!

green-salt 4y ago

I feel like this is trying to dodge IM and email noise fatigue and having that bleed into texts. I'm nocturnal when I have the choice so I understand, but would definitely mute a coworker if they regularly texted me on a schedule for when I wake up.

yardstick 4y ago

> It’s especially useful in situations where I have a work-related thought at 3AM and don’t want to risk waking up and annoying my co-workers. Just send an email? If it doesn’t require an immediate response, use email. Also if it’s iPhone to iPhone you likely won’t interrupt the other user since they would/should have night mode on anyway.

blinded 4y ago
Similar to other notifications, I feel its up to the recienver to control their notification in a way that makes sense to them.
- hkpack 4y ago
  Some teams doesn’t have dedicated on-call engineer, so message as 3am may mean something may be urgent. At least it would be difficult to resist looking at what is going on. E-mail is way to go in this situation. Also, sender will be unavailable to reply for additional info, while appearing to be online.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    The obvious solution to this is to have a separate communication channel for critically urgent/important messages.
macintux 4y ago
I don’t have access to corporate email on my phone, although I’d probably use Slack instead of a text.
prmoustache 4y ago
We like it or not, spam, corporate and commercial harassment made so that many people have dropped email for most intra team communication a long time ago and barely check it or only once a week.

vimy 4y ago

You can make a new shortcut that is triggered by a specific hour. Not sure why this post says it can’t be done. I used it last month to wish someone happy birthday.

ideamotor 4y ago

I find as I get older, I want to simplify. I know setting this up would be easy but it’s just one more thing to mess with that isn’t tackling a fundamental issue. The fundamental issue here is why you want to send delayed messages not how.

xyst 4y ago
In my one case, I act as the custodian of the mobile internet provider. the more people I have on my plan, the less everybody else pays (plus much higher leverage w/ the provider). I pay the provider directly, and every individual is expected to pay me their share (including any installment plans on phones). Instead of manually typing out and sending a response to everybody. Now I can just setup this automation and it will send out my reminder every month. That's 6-7 minutes I save every month just for this use case.

xyst 4y ago

very useful, thanks for sharing! I ended up configuring the shortcut to use the location field rather than title field. So at least my calendar won't look odd. Still works as expected. I wasn't entirely sure how to format the text field so it would pick up the phone numbers (in case of group messages). So I just went with my gut and used a space separator for each distinct number and typed the fully qualified number (ie, +1YYYXXXZZZZ)

EGreg 4y ago

For what it's worth, our "Groups" app (which has been downloaded by 10 million people in 95+ countries) has offered this kind of feature for years. It lets you set reminders to send mass messages to people. It also does things like list contacts by the time you met them, so if you went to a party last night or a week ago, you can see who you have to follow up with. We meant to turn it into a full-fledged ORM, but we got busy with the Qbix Platform. Anyway, if you want to give it a try, go here: https://qbix.com/GROUPS https://qbix.com/GROUPS

sbaildon 4y ago

There’s an automation that’s triggered when you receive an email. Coupled with Mail’s “Send later” feature in iOS 16 and some parsing, you can send messages at any time you want.

avnigo 4y ago

Adding a new calendar for this seems odd. You can skip that step and load your messages from the Notes app, or use something like Data Jar [0] to store your messages in the desired structure, alongside the phone number and date/time you expect them to go out on (assuming you have set multiple automations throughout the day that would check if a message needs to be sent out that hour). Admittedly this is still a bit hacky, but good to see that it's possible. [0]: https://datajar.app/ https://datajar.app/

kritr 4y ago

This is a really fun feature. I used this to make automatic birthday messages based on the birthday’s calendar. Since the contacts app syncs with the birthday calendar, it’s easy enough to map names to phone numbers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gXL1S4MnyE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gXL1S4MnyE