The Notes app on iOS lets you collaborate. And this feature provides the ability to secretly communicate with one or more people.
The Notes app for iOS has a collaboration tool that allows multiple people to collaborate on the same note. Whoever added the note can read and edit the text in real time, just like in Google Docs. This is an incredibly useful feature for allowing people to work on the same project at school or work, but it can also be used for secret chatting.
It is currently not possible to send ephemeral text messages on iPhone as Snapchat allows. You can still delete the message, but the recipient will still have it (at least until iOS 16 with its edit and unsend features). However, with Notes, you can write a message that the recipient can read, delete, and reply to. You can do this back and forth, with each participant deleting the message as soon as they read it. In practice, you can have a very long and very private conversation without any evidence of its existence. Here’s how.
Create note
On your iPhone, launch the Notes app and tap the Write button in the bottom right corner of the screen. Then enter whatever you want to keep, otherwise it will be deleted when you leave the note. You can also start with an existing note, but it’s best to start with an empty note.
Change note sharing options
After creating a note, you can add another person as a collaborator. This one can be read and modified. To get started, click the “More”button in the top right corner and then “Share Note”.
Then click “Sharing Options”and make sure “Can edit”is selected in the “Permission”section. You should also uncheck “Anyone can add users”if you want to be the only person who can add members. Return to the previous page after completing the settings.
Add a co-author and share a link
Next, choose how you want to share the note: you can send it via SMS, email, social network, etc. If you swipe up on the sharing options, you can select “Copy Link”to copy the link to your clipboard and paste it to any place.
You can also click the Add icon to search for contacts. Adding a contact to a note is absolutely essential – if you share a link without adding a contact, the other person won’t be able to see or edit the note even with the link.
Communicate secretly through Notes
The other person should now open the link and accept the invitation. If she agrees, she will be taken to the Notes app and the note you just created. To chat, enter your text, the other person will see what you are typing in real time without even pressing the send button. She will also receive a notification each time the note is changed.
Each person is assigned a color to keep track of who is typing what. You can also swipe right to see the name of the person who wrote the message, along with a timestamp.
You can also click the Share Note button, navigate to Manage Shared Note, and then activate Highlight All Changes. Thus, all messages will remain permanently highlighted in their own color, so that it is more convenient to follow the conversation.
You can also, conversely, delete your message or someone else’s message as soon as it has been read. Thus, the process is more like a fleeting conversation.
And you can use text as well as photos, videos, links and more.
Permanently delete a secret conversation
If you’re the creator of a note and want to keep it but prevent it from being edited again, it’s easy to do so. In the upper right corner, click “View Members”and “Manage Shared Note”. To remove a member, you can either swipe left on their name and then tap “Remove”, or tap on the name and then “Remove Access”.
You can also click on the “Stop Exchange”option. All participants will be deleted and the note will be deleted on all devices.
If you are not the creator of the note, you can simply delete the note from your Notes app.