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Two things happen when you receive an SMS text message on your iPhone. First, when you wake up your iPhone, all or part of the text appears on the unlock screen. Second, after you unlock the phone, the Text icon on the Home screen displays the number of unread messages. (SMS is short for a protocol called Short Message Service.)
To read your message, tap the Text icon and the Text Messages screen appears. Tap the message to read it. If you want to reply to the message, tap the text entry field to the left of the Send button, and the keyboard appears. Type a reply and then tap Send.
Your conversation is saved as a series of text bubbles. Your messages appear on the right side of the screen in green bubbles; the other person's messages appear on the left in gray bubbles.
You can delete a conversation in two ways :
If you're viewing the conversation: Tap the Clear button at the top right of the conversation screen.
If you're viewing the list of text messages: Tap the Edit button at the top left of the Text Messages list, and then tap the red minus icon that appears next to the conversation.
If you want to hear an alert sound when you receive an SMS text message on your iPhone, tap the Settings icon on your Home screen, tap Sounds, and then turn on the New Text Message item. (If you don't want to hear an alert when a text message arrives, turn it off.) Be aware that even if the New Text Message option is turned on, you won't hear any alert sound when an SMS message arrives if the Ring/Silent switch is off.
Here are some more things you can do with SMS text messages:
- If an SMS message includes a URL, tap it to open that Web page in Safari.
- If an SMS message includes a phone number, tap it to call that number.
- If an SMS message includes an e-mail address, tap it to open a pre-addressed e-mail message in Mail.
- If an SMS message includes a street address, tap it to see a map in Maps.
 | Both sender and receiver need SMS-enabled mobile phones. Your iPhone qualifies, as does almost any mobile phone made in the past four or five years. Keep in mind that if you send SMS messages to folks with a phone that doesn't support SMS, they will never get your message nor will they know you even sent a message. |
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