iMessage

Interested in iPhone, iPad, or Apple and looking to have some great conversations? Got a burning question or frustrating problem you just want help fixing? Already an expert and eager to share your knowledge? Well, all that and more is just waiting for you in the iMore forums.

Here are today's hot topics:

• What features do you want in iOS 7? Your post in this thread may be posted in an upcoming blog post so please be as descriptive as possible and keep your features realistic. 
• Do you want a larger screened iPhone?
• iMessage issues
• iPhone 5S release date

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iMessage and Facetime are both down for some users. According to Apple, the outage started just a little after 3 PM Eastern Time. There is not yet an ETA on when the issues will be resolved. For more information, check Apple’s system status page.

It was recently reported that iMessage had caused a snag in the Drug Enforcement Administration’s ability to intercept text messages. Citing iMessage’s end-to-end encryption as the cause, the DEA stated that "iMessages between two Apple devices are considered encrypted communication and cannot be intercepted, regardless of the cell phone service provider." On the surface, this seems reassuring to iMessage users that their conversations can’t be intercepted. But is it possible that we’re giving a little too much credit to the DEA when they say iMessages are “impossible to intercept”?

The Drug Enforcement Administration has found it difficult to intercept text message conversations sent with Apple’s iMessage platform due to the encryption that Apple employs for it. According to internal documents a criminal investigation was hindered by the DEA’s inability to tap into iMessage conversations, despite the fact that they had a warrant. According to CNET, the DEA initially discovered that conversations that they had been collecting were incomplete.

While iMessage is a great service that lets iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Mac users correspond for free with any other iOS user, it can also be a bag of hurt at times. One of the largest issues I see people complain about is the verification issue. Namely, iMessage will randomly sign you out of your account and you're kicked back to the login screen when you launch the Messages app. You sign back in and iMessage asks you to choose the numbers and emails you'd like, you click next, and the verification step rudely throws you back to the login screen.

If this sounds like an issue you've had, follow along and we'll walk you through how to try and resolve it.

If you use iMessage frequently for both work and personal, there may come times when you don't want to be disturbed by messages from people you don't know. iMessage gives you the ability to disable alerts from people that aren't in your Contacts app. You'll still receive the messages, you just won't receive audible alerts for messages from people you don't know.

This is how to change your settings:

Apple has launched a new status page for it’s stores, services like iMessages and Siri ,and iCloud that is far more granular and informative than the previous version. While the old page was simply a list of status messages pertaining to iCloud, the new page contains a board with a section each for Services, Stores, and iCloud. An indicator, either a green square for ‘Normal’ or yellow triangle for ‘Issue’, gives the status of each individual service, such as iMessage, Siri, or Mail.

iMessage and FaceTime are both experiencing outages according to Apple's iCloud system status page, and numerous reports flooding into iMore's various comm channels. Apple says service will be restored asap.

Online continues to be a huge challenge for Apple, and if you haven't already, I invite you to read why I think it's going to be one of Apple's biggest challenges going forward.

As always, let me know if iMessage and FaceTime are working for you, where you are, and when you get your service back.

Apple's iMessage service, their iOS and OS X SMS- and MMS- like service, is currently down for a lot of users. It's been going down fairly regularly as of late, though not for lengthy periods of time. Game Center, Apple's online gaming service, has also gone down or suffered from poor service over the last week.

Everything goes down. Google goes down. Amazon does down. RIM goes down. Microsoft goes down. We go down. But reliability is a feature and if something goes down or suffers from poor services too often, or even if perception starts to give people that impression, it's a problem.

If you've got an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 5 or higher or a Mac running OS X Mountain Lion, you can use iMessage to send free text, photo, and video messages to anyone else in the world as long as they're using an iMessage capable device as well. Read receipts allow your contact to see whether or not you've viewed a message yet. While some people may consider read receipts to be a bit stalker-ish, others may find them useful for work and business situations.