When you have a new message, this is highlighted in a bright pink. To view an incoming Snap, tap the Push Notification to launch the app, and then tap the inbox icon in the bottom left corner. To make the most of Snapchat, you’ll want to enable Push Notifications. Tap the check box next to the timer control to save the photo to your Camera Reel there’s no way to pull photos from your Camera Reel to send as a Snap, but you can save photos taken within the app. Take a photo, then add a caption, scribble on it, and set a timer between one and ten seconds. To send a message, just launch the app-it automatically loads with the camera turned on. Like the others, Snapchat searches through your contacts to find other Snapchat users, who you can then add to your Friends list one-by-one. Snapchat also has a unified inbox, with a list of your recent activity. However, this widely popular app is fun to use and rapidly growing in App Store downloads, so we shouldn’t count it out. Snapchat is all about picture messaging, and as such, I wouldn’t really consider it as an iMessage replacement. Here, you can block users from contacting you, pick your Notification preferences, and set the color of your speech bubbles. Kik has a solid offering of customizable settings. If you slide to the left from your main inbox and tap More, you can access a number of additional attachments, like YouTube videos, Reddit Pics, sketches, and memes. Kik also has a small library of emoticons, if that’s something you’re interested in, and you don’t have the iOS emoji keyboard installed.īut Kik’s most unique offering is its interactive extra features.
Tap the plus sign next to the text box to access your Camera Roll or to take a new photo. Sending multimedia messages is quick and painless as well. Like WhatsApp, when you send a message successfully, a small checkmark appears next to your speech bubble when your friend reads it, a small letter “R” appears next to the check mark.Ĭreate your own meme and send it as a Kik message. Kik stores your entire conversation thread, with your messages on the right and your partner’s responses on the left. Tap the speech bubble in the top-right corner to start a new chat or search for other users, or tap an existing conversation to continue the thread. It keeps a log of current chats, notifications of your stored Contacts joining Kik, and messages from the Kik Team with info about the app. The main Kik landing page acts as a sort of inbox. (Don’t worry-your phone number and email address are kept private by default.) Upon install, Kik searches through your iPhone’s contacts to find other Kik users for you to message with.
Kik requires your name, email address, and phone number, along with a username and password to get started.
It’s not as full-featured as WhatsApp, but is available on the same platforms: iOS, Android, Windows Phone 8, and BlackBerry. Kik Messenger, a messaging platform that lets you send notes to other Kik users. Kik: just the basics Kik has a unified inbox with friend requests, messages, and other notifications. You can also broadcast a message to all of your WhatsApp contacts, or create a group chat. Tap a conversation to continue chatting in that thread, or start a new message by tapping the box in the top-right corner. Contacts links to your entire contacts list stored in your iPhone you can tap a contact and send them a WhatsApp invitation if you’d like to encourage more contacts to try the service.Ĭhats shows a log of all of your current chats, and it’s also the place to go if you want to send a new message. Next is Status, which lets you alert your contacts on whether or not it’s a good time to chat. The first, Favorites, is a list of your stored Contacts who also have a WhatsApp account, so you know who you can contact using the app. This is important, as you can only send messages from WhatsApp to WhatsApp-however the app is available for iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone 8, so plenty of your contacts have the app available to them.
When you first install WhatsApp, the app will search through your Contacts (if you allow it) to find other WhatsApp users. I can also easily send and receive messages with friends who live outside of the United States. That way, I can send text-like mobile messages to friends with any device or any carrier without it eating up my messages limit set by my carrier plan. What I like about WhatsApp is that it sends messages over Wi-Fi and data, much like iMessage does when messaging from Apple device to Apple device. My favorite of the bunch is an app called WhatsApp: for full-featured messaging WhatsApp messages follow a familiar back-and-forth thread.