Self Destructing Message review

We review Self Destructing Message, an iPhone app that adds Mission: Impossible-level security to your text communications.

As amusing as it is to think about sending a message that will self destruct after a few seconds, and as difficult as it is to stop “dum, dum, da-dum DUM dum, dum, da-dum dum” going through your mind as you do it, that’s exactly what this app does.

But it’s not a novelty app that aims to parody that particular aspect of Mission: Impossible just for shits and giggles.

There’s a real and – potentially – useable communications tool included here, that works in a slick and interesting fashion, and delivers on its promises.

Self Destructing Message first needs you to set up an account, though if you’ve already signed up on a different app from the same developer, your credentials are already there for you to sign in.

The app can be set to remember your login details, or you can add a gateway to the messaging system by entering your login each time it loads. Once the app can identify you, you can set up an address book. Of sorts.

Given the clandestine nature of the app, it seems ill-advised to openly list the name and number of the people you’re sending a self destructing message to.

When entering a contact into the “Black Book” you can give your recipients – and those likely to send a return message – an alias that only you can identify.

The Black Book is mutually exclusive, and any recipients are identified by the username they registered when installing the app.

This is the only time you’ll see their real username, as you enter the alias by which they’ll then be listed in the book.

A message is typed out like any other instant messenger, but before it’s sent, a self-destruct timer is added. This can be anywhere between five seconds and one minute, at varying increments.

The message is then sent to the recipient’s inbox, where it waits to be opened before the timer is primed.

The recipient (or you, if you’ve just received a message) then has that limited amount of time to read and digest your message before it’s gone forever.

The developer even promises that its message servers are purged every 24-hours, so there’s not even any hope of reclaiming it through very elaborate means.

Photos, audio and video can be sent in exactly the same manner, and are taken to pieces just the same after they’ve been used.

Obviously the circumstances for requiring this app are rather extreme and a little hard to imagine, but there’s still a good chance that people will want to share the occasional secret without concern of it then sitting forgotten and discoverable at the other end, where you’ve no control over its removal.

So in its own, very unique way, Self Destructing Message is a complete success, and is ideal for serving a very select clientele of secret social networkers.

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