Now I read a text and then after unlocking my phone, when I tap the Messages App, it says something like, " You have five unread messages" and they really are not unread because I've read them on my lock screen as a notification. Any thoughts or suggestions. Thanks!
Comments
Clearing Messages - Bug or Feature
I sent the following query/suggestion to Apple Accessibility (although I don't think this is really and accessibility issue since my sighted wife observes the same behavior) and they told me that they were unable to reproduce the issue. Here is what I said:
"In iOS 12, when a new text message is received, two scenarios could happen:
1. If the screen is locked when the text message is received, the user could “clear” the item. In this case, after unlocking the phone, the “Messages” icon did not show any “unread” messages. This makes sense since the message was presumably read on the locked screen and then cleared.
2. If the phone was unlocked when the message was received, the message would appear in the status bar at the top of the screen. If the user subsequently “cleared” the notification, then the “Messages” icon would show 1 unread message. This seemed strange since the message had presumably been read and then cleared.
3. The difference in behavior between #1 and #2 above didn’t seem to make sense since in both scenarios the message was “cleared” but the “Messages” icon showed a different status in each case.
Now in iOS 13, when a new message is received and subsequently cleared from either the locked screen or unlocked condition, the “Messages” icon shows 1 unread message in either case, i.e., the user can’t make the message status be “read” without diving into the Messages ap itself. Thus it takes several extra steps to actually “clear” the message or change the status to “read”. One has to open the Messages ap, then open each unread message.
My suggestion is that there should be an easy way of marking the message as “read” from the locked screen or status bar notification without having to open the Messages app and each message. If the user interacted with the message on the locked screen or the status bar notification the message should be presumed to be “read”."
I really wish this could be fixed so that if one reads a mesage on the locked screen or status bar and then cledars it, the message doesn't appear as "unread" in the Messages app. If that continues to happen we'll just have to keep clearing the messages twice!
Maybe someone else can explain this behavior to Apple in a way that they will better understand.
--Pete
Thank you.
Hi Peter, Very well said. Before iOS 13, if I read a message, then swiped up to clear it, the message didn't show up as unread in the Messages App. Could this be a bug?
Could this be a bug?
yes, I believe it is a bug. I've reported it to Apple but they said they couldn't reproduce it. Maybe you or others will have better luck getting them to understand if you report it also. They said that they hadn't received any other reports of this. They can only fix bugs or address issues if they know about it!
So I advise others to contact Apple support or Apple accessibility if they find this annoying also.
--Pete
I don't think it is a bug
I don't think it's a bug because when you see a message show up on the lock screen, if you clear the notification, you are not saying that you actually have read the message. You're saying get that notification off my screen, and you have not technically read the message which is why it still shows up as unread when you tap the messages icon. What I do think is a bug is that I cannot reply to a message from my lock screen without opening the message app. That used to be possible.
Anyway, I could be totally wrong, but I seem to remember the whole notification versus unread messages has been going on a long time, at least for me.