Since the advent of iMessage Read Receipts, there have been a lot of mixed feelings about them. Some people like them while others think they’re creepy as all hell. I’ve always had them on because I have a fairly liberal view of my privacy and don’t really think that it’s that big of a deal.

Usually, I like to have them enabled to let whomever I am communicating with to know that I’ve read and acknowledged their message. If you’re talking to a fairly reasonable person, and you didn’t get back to them right away, the logical conclusion they should draw is that you saw the message but don’t have time to respond right away. Maybe you were driving or in a situation that you can’t reply immediately.

Anyway, all of these problems or misunderstandings can be alleviated with one simple tweak: SafeTexting by Aaron Thomas, which is $1.00 on the BigBoss repo or SafeTexting Lite which is free with a limited feature set. The paid version allows you to chose when to send the Read Receipts and hide your typing indicator.

Head on over to Cydia and check out the lite version to give it a shot if you’re interested.

You know all that data listed under “Other” in iTunes for your iOS Device? Well about that… Every time you send (or reviece) a picture via SMS or over iMessage, your devices secrets saves that data even if you delete the message(s). This is bad for two reasons: it’s a huge security risk and takes up precious space on your iOS Device. If you want to remove that data and protect your security a bit better, follow our guide below.

1. Download iFile or some other program to view your system files.
2. Go to /Var/mobile/library/SMS/attachments/
3. You should see a bunch of folders, then in those folders there will also be more folders, and inside those folders (yet again) there should be old pictures that are saved.
4. Go back up to /Var/mobile/library/SMS/attachments/ then select and delete all those folders listed.
5. Lastly, I would suggest rebooting your iOS Device but it is not necessary.

There you have it, you’ve freed up space on your device and protected your privacy just a bit better. Enjoy!