I’ve been using an iPhone for several years now and last night when I pulled it out of my pocket, the messages icon was missing. I have to go into the App Store and search for “messages” to open the app (it works fine from there, but I WANT MY LITTLE GREEN SPEECH BALLOON BACK).
TIA for any assistance anyone can offer.
Google says,
Reinstall the Message app on iPhone. Open the App Store app >tap the search icon and type Message in the search field. Locate the missing message app icon and tap the cloud icon next to it to download.
But I’m not getting a cloud icon. Just a button that says “open.”
Did you go into settings, check your list of apps, and find it there? If so, delete it and, when you go back to the app store, you will be able to download it again. It will probably then appear once again on the main screen.
I think if you long-tap (i.e. tap and hold) the message icon, you can drag it to the bottom and it will stay on your home screen again.
It’s not giving me any way to delete the app (actually, it’s in “settings” with other non-deletable features such as Safari).
iPhone 13 version iOS 17.1.2
Ok good to know the next update does weird things to icons.
Have you looked in your apps library on your phone? It’s there if the store just gives you the open button instead of the download cloud. Just keep swiping you screen right to left till you see every app you have in organized into folders(it should say “app library” at the top of the screen). The icon should be in a folder labeled “social” or something like that. Did you by chance mean 17.2.1(which I have)?. Long press on the icon and select place on home screen from the menu that will pop up.
Also when was the last time you restarted the phone. I find that ios gets unstable after a couple of days.
Thanks! That did it. Now I can go to bed.
As I ready myself for work…Le Sigh…
Nope.17.1.2. I just rechecked it. My phone sometimes misses the updates because I work from 2230-0700 and I tend not be be on WiFi at Apple’s preferred auto-update time.