Get SMS Delivery Notification On iOS With This Handy Code Trick
January 7, 2011
The iPhone, as you probably have realized by now, doesn't have many of the basic telephony and texting features that regular "dumb phones" have. One example is SMS delivery notifications. This is a convenient feature of the SMS protocol that gives you a confirmation message whenever a text you sent to someone gets delivered to their phone. It can be very helpful, but iOS doesn't natively support it. What can you do when you need this functionality?
Fortunately the folks over at ifun.de have now found a handy workaround. By simply adding *N# or *T# at the beginning of a text message (depending on the carrier, the first one worked for me when texting the UK), you'll receive a confirmation text back from the carrier as soon as your message gets delivered to the recipient's phone. All this without the knowledge of the receiver.
The bad news is that it doesn't work on every carrier, and most notably not on AT&T (Maybe you need a different code? Tell us if you find one). Nevertheless, it's a really neat trick that could come in handy on some occasions, and it will definitely impress your friends.
Let me also point out that there are some apps available that will automate the process like SMS delivery Notifications ($.99), which will even help you select the right confirmation code depending on your recipient's carrier. We haven't tested these out though, so try them at your own risk.