Here’s the list of features for Release 4.3, currently being rolled-out in 3 beta releases before public release.

Source is www.bitesms.com/cydia/beta4.3

Beta 1, released on 6 August
Beta 2, released on 12 August (please see bug note at the end of this post)
Beta 3, released on 20 August
Beta 4, released on 27 August (apart from translations this should be the final version before public release on Monday)

(Beta1) New feature (setting based) that allows Quick Compose to be used in the lock screen mode – Nice!

(Beta2) Add support for “delivery receipt SMS notifications” using carrier prefix codes, e.g. #N9 (it’s not proper SMS protocol level delivery receipts, it just asks your carrier – if supported, for an SMS notification upon delivery).

For prefix codes see: http://www.sosiphone.com/blogiphone/sms-deliver…

(Beta3) New Accents/Diacritics feature, during sending then replace most characters with accents/diacritics with their equivalent without accent/diacritic, but only if this results in less SMS messages.

(Beta4) Add “Forward” feature in Cut&Paste menu on bubble double-tap inside the biteSMS application (SMS only, not MMS).

(Beta3) Implement additional smileys as per user forum postings.

(Beta4) Added smiley setting to allow “Short Code” version of smileys to be used, e.g. :) instead of :-) to save on SMS characters.

(Beta3) Added smiley setting to allow encoding of smileys to be Emoji or ASCII

(Beta3) Add passcode feature to control access to biteSMS and native Messaging applications.

(Beta1) When user enters the text field and it only contains a signature, the cursor will now be positioned before the signature (currently it’s wherever the user touches).

(Beta2) Add a new Smiley setting called “Emoji to ASCII” ON/OFF to denote if biteSMS smileys are translated into ASCII or not, default ON.

(Beta4) Fix-up autocorrect not working in biteSMS application (works fine in Quick Compose and Quick Reply)

(Beta1) Add Mon, Tue, Wed…etc to the Settings, Carrier SMS Plan, Reset Counter feature for those on weekly plans.

(Beta1) Add a setting to allow the Quick Reply read/unread circle feature to be turned off.

(Beta1) Add a setting for Quick Reply to “Auto-Close” if set, when you press the Send button the window auto-closes.

(Beta1) Add a setting for Quick Compose to “Auto-Close” if set, when you press the Send button the window auto-closes.

(Beta1) Add the polished Favs icon for Quick Compose, as posted by Nim.

(Beta1) Update the start-up image (default.png) displayed when biteSMS starts-up to include the settings icon as well.

(Beta2) Fix Bug in Quick Compose and Quick Reply, where you enter text, lock, unlock and then the entered text is gone.

(Beta2) Fixed issue when using biteSMS sub-menu (from long-hold / double tap in text field) upon clicking back in text field, the cut&paste menu would be shown again.

(Beta2) fixed up issues raised for Beta1 (added Home button support in QC in lock-screen, fixed Intelliscreen not appearing in lock-screen after using QC, moved smileys settings to it’s own page, added “Special Thanks” section in About screen, bugs with using smileys and showing then as ASCII, e.g. lock and unlock in QC and amended some translations to avoid truncated text).

(Beta4) Add a setting in Quick Compose “Default Last To:” – defaults last entered contact in the “To” field

(Beta4) New shadow effect in Quick Compose and Quick Reply screens.

(Beta4) New pink send button in Quick Compose and Quick Reply screens.

(Beta4) Fixed iGo and Chopper from crashing when biteSMS installed.

(Beta4) Fixed issue, whereby upon first start-up of biteSMS after upgrade or install, it crashed due to other Mobile Substrate applications being active.

And I thought Bite couldn’t get any better

You should see the TODO list….goes on forever!

Greeeeeeeat! So much new features for a 4.x release!
I hope first beta comes early!
After this release the only new things that bite doesn’t have Are mms via bite and a way to’ remove the space between rhe words and .,-?!...
Great work btw!

Awesome, I’m kinda stunned!

@ohecht: That’s what I thought, too.

Well done, Martin! Can’t wait for 4.3 to be released :-)

Awesome ! :-)

AWESOME!!
This is great guys! Looking forward to the beta. Great ideas!!
Thanks for considering all the suggestions. My fav app on my phone!!

Thanks!

Great! Can’t wait… any ideas when you release 1st beta? ;-)

Send2Group-Feature: Would this allow to send to more then 10 people at the same time via sms? And how could you select in this Group which number of the persons in this group?

Edit by Martin, you’ll be able to click multiple contacts (click each one) or choose an entire group.

Such as PersonA got two mobil-numbers – which would biteSMS choose, when I send a SMS to a group?

Edit by Martin, that’s a good point, I’m not sure, as we have not coded it yet. I thought a group had a bunch of numbers related to contacts in them, so if chosen it would send to all.

Also what is, if in this Group are personen from my country and some outside. I want to send my SMS to all people inside my country via my proviver and outside via biteSMS – so would biteSMS manage this automaticly, when I send a SMS to a mixed-group?

Edit by Martin, not in this release, it would send them via the network (carrier or biteSMS) based on the send button color, blue or pink.

Great news! :) Can’t wait…

@ Martin

what about the feature to delete/trash a sms from QR screen itself
u had mentioned this for release in 4.2 to do, didnt happen
no mention of it in 4.3 to do?

Edit by Martin, well spotted!, because Quick Reply is in a state of flux (as we have a cool new idea for it and also want to add lock screen support) we are not doing any interim work on it for this release. Hopefully all the QR stuff will be in Release 4.4

Update the start-up image (default.png) displayed when biteSMS starts-up to include the settings icon as well.

So, do you can also add the default-answer.png start-up image if bitesms opens in a conversation?

Edit by Martin, sorry, not in this release (because we haven’t figured out how Apple does this yet), and it’s a fairly minor issue, so don’t want to spend too much time on it as yet.

Edit by justsports, maybe just a rename of the start-up image? if the sms app is in a conversation (or composing a new message) default-answer.png will be renamed to default.png so it will be used if you close the sms and re-open it later. if you go back to the conversations list it will be renamed back.

just add quickreply to lockscreen as well…...tht makes bitesms complete….just add a disable option if anybody doesnt want it…...

and how abt a landscape quickreply?????

Martin can you add scheduled sms?
Is one year that this feature is in to-do list….
:(

I’ve got to say Martin, I am very impressed by this anticipated to-do list for 4.3. It includes several features I’ve wanted. Thanks for all the continued efforts.

A question (open to anyone who can answer)... Previously there was a bug where if you sent to multiple contacts and a reply was generated you never knew who it came from (it’d just return in the conversation with the subset of users you sent the original group IM to). Has this been resolved? I’ve always been hesitant to send a text to more than one user now.

Edit by Martin, the native Messaging app and biteSMS now show the senders name above the bubble for incoming group replies.

When Martin ? we are Beta Dipendent. i need bitesms on lockscreen.. give us a date…..

Edit by Martin, well I am testing the Quick Compose at lock-screen feature as we speak (beta1), so hopefully early next week.

is there a way to fix the group message going out at an mms problem? everytime i add more than one recipient it changes into a mms and some people dont recieve mms.

Edit by Martin, most carriers around the world have rolled out a “carrier update” in iTunes to fix this issue. I’d suggest checking with your carrier.

For the next release, can you guys please fix the “select” menu when you do QC or QR. Normally, if you click in the text area and it brings up the menu, you are suppose to click the text area again and have the menu go away… but it doesn’t. The menu covers the text and you have to do a space and then backspace in order for the menu to go away.

It’s just a little inconvenient :(

Edit by Martin, seems so obvious now you point it out! – it’s been added to the list for this release to fix – so hopefully yes..:)

Martin, since you are adding quick reply to lock screen, how bout adding 2 more options to that so people can choose when there QR comes up?

There should be like 3 settings
1. QR comes up on lockscreen.
2. QR comes up after slide to view.
3. No QR after slide to view. BiteSMS opens instead on slide to view. QR only comes up while the phone is unlocked/in-use.

I think then everyone can set up QR the way they want. I would love this so i can take advantage of #3.

And personally i think a new menu should be created in the settings for the QR options because im sure there is going to be alot.

Edit by Martin, good suggestions and it’ll come along with other cool stuff for Quick Reply, but not in this release. Quick Reply from 4.2 already has it’s own settings page.

...my 2 second rant, I have never really looked at Quick Send in iRealSMS before, but of course now we are developing it I have.

I really, really cannot understand how anyone uses it / likes it, for example just typing a text in the lock screen is bloody annoying that the screen keeps timing out! – why does it do that?

Also, it’s annoying when listening to the iPod via headphones, when it’s in my pocket, and I use the volume control via the 3Gs headphones and the Quick Send window appears, which is silly, as it’s easy to send a “random” text by accident.

Of course these “features” won’t be in biteSMS…...gee that was a rant!

...update, also irritating that once you press send or close in lock screen, it immediately fades out the screen, which is also annoying…

Martin, the iRealSMS app has a setting to change the Dim time. So you change it to like 30 seconds and have heaps of time to send your text.

A bit annoying though, I’m sure BiteSMS can do better (like 8 seconds after last finger tap LOL)

Edit by Martin, or while the Quick Compose window is open, don’t fade out.

I use both iReal and Bite, have been for quite some time. They both have their advantages from my point of view.

While extending the screen dim time might make you think that your battery life would go down, I actually find the opposite. With the iReal quick reply on lock screen turned on, I set my screen dim time to 50 seconds. This allows me more than enough time to compose most replies and send them. As soon as I send the reply the screen turns off. This is usually less “screen on time” than it takes me to unlock the screen, fill out a reply in Bites quick reply box, then turn the screen off again.

I actually like the fact that the screen turns back off after I send a reply on the lock screen. If the phone was locked when I got the sms, I wasn’t using it, and I probably want it to turn off again.

These are of course just my opinions, and I’m not trying to say iReal is better than Bite. Where bite REALLY shines is when I’m in the actual program; the interface is cleaner and easier to use and just works like its supposed to :)

Lol Martin just took a “bite” out of iReal. Fear the arrival of Dresden. :-P

everything looks cool, except the smileys crap. added bloat, and totally pointless imo.