Enabling SMS Delivery Reports on iPhone

A very simple yet missing function of any iPhone model, is SMS delivery reports.

Of course there is iMessage – it does have delivery reports. There is also WhatsApp (you really should be using this great app) supporting the same feature, or Viber. But you still need to know whether your plain old SMS messages have reached their destination!

Don’t be desperate. You can still receive delivery reports using feature provided by every cell network provider.

When composing a message, you can start with your mobile operator’s specific prefix, i.e. dot – “. Hi, how are you”, instead of “Hi, how are you”.

This will actually trigger your operator into sending you a separate return SMS stating delivery status.

The SMS prefixes are different across mobile operators. As mentioned, the “.” (dot) would work for Megafon, Russia.

You do not need to have your device jailbroken using prefixes to receive delivery reports.

For those who are jailbroken, things are even more neat. There is a simple yet powerful tweak from Cydia – iPhoneDelivery. It integrates directly with Messages.app and provides delivery notification feature. Using BiteSMS? It integrates with the latter as well.

Only downside, you need to have jailbroken iPhone to install the tweak.

Users of the iPhone 4S are out of luck, as the tweak will not work on their phones. However, there is workaround for iPhone 4S. It uses the same method to receive delivery reports as the one for owners of non-jailbroken devices  – prefixes:

A separate tweak, called SMSPrefix, freely available on Cydia, automates insertion of the prefix if you always want to receive delivery reports. Again, there is no point using it elsewhere but on iPhone 4S – other devices can make use of the great iPhoneDelivery tweak.

Do you know prefixes for your own operator? Let us know in comments