This AppleInsider piece by William Gallagher is a semi-long read, so I’ll cut to the Message-editing specifics. Apple has a new patent application, and part of it concerns editing a Message that has already been sent:

“The first message can be edited, despite the fact that it has already been sent,” it starts. “To initiate the editing of the first message, the user selects the first message with a predefined touch input (e.g., a tap gesture, long press gesture, light press gesture, or deep press gesture) on the first message or the message region for the first message.”

Of course, just a mention in a patent does not mean the concept will ever see the light of day. So grain of salt there.

But the section in the AppleInsider piece titled Editing Messages is worth reading. It does a great job laying out the problem with editing messages and syncing those edits. Makes the patent mention that much more intriguing.

And if Apple does work out a system for doing this, maybe they can share the technique with Twitter.