Messages’ lets you compose and reply to messages from anywhere in iOS

Sometimes I feel like I’m one of the only people in the world that doesn’t use biteSMS. Don’t get me wrong, I really like some of the tweak’s features, like quick reply and compose. But in my experience, it’s not very stable and tends to clash with the stock Messages app.

That being said, you can understand my excitement when I saw ‘Messages’ pop up in my Cydia stream today. The new jailbreak tweak, by Ma Jun (the creator of Bulletin), offers up biteSMS-like quick compose and reply features, without all of the extra biteSMS fluff…

Messages essentially allows you to compose and reply to SMS and iMessages from anywhere in iOS. It blends in perfectly with the stock Messages app, unless you decide to go with the ‘Black Style’ UI option,      and can be initiated by both Activator and QuickDo functions.

But before we get into functionality, let’s talk about the tweak itself. Once installed, all of its options can be configured from the Settings app. And those options include setting Activator and QuickDo actions, the ability to disable quick reply and other pertinent toggles.

The quick reply feature is by far my favorite, as it enables you to reply to messages from the Lock screen without unlocking your phone. All you have to do is slide the icon to the right on a Messages notification and the conversation will appear with the keyboard up and ready.

And the quick compose feature is just as easy to use. Once you’ve chosen your Activator/QuickDo action, you can open up a New Message in any app or from the Lock screen. Yes, you can technically already do this. But Messages offers some advantages, like adding media.

I’m happy to report that I haven’t had any stability problems with the tweak, and compose/reply windows load quickly. And if you’re not using biteSMS or something similar, I recommend checking it out. It’s $3.99, with a free trial, and you can find it in the BigBoss repo.

(supports iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, but you must be on iOS 6 or higher)

So, what do you think of Messages?