Is there a more divisive valediction than the default “Sent From My iPhone” sign-off? When the iPhone first appeared, users were roundly condemned for their thinly veiled humblebrag among the mounting popularity of Apple products.

The message was clear: having an iPhone was so much more than having something on which you could make calls and browse the internet. It was a gorgeous trinket and elite lifestyle marker that signalled both sophistication and technological know-how. Membership of the club was something to be boasted about, and you could feel the conceit as users pressed send. The backlash was immediate.



Quickly it became crass, and a little embarrassing, even. Either you wanted to show off your smartphone or you couldn’t figure out how to turn the message off. The Atlantic said it was a failure of the imagination, arguing the space would be put better to use with a casual bon mot or quirky alternative (“sent from my telco slingshot”), while Mashable countered it was too much information. Soon it was rarely seen, and if it did appear at the footer of an incoming email, rather than feeling contempt you thought: “Bless”. By then it was little more than a charming throwback.



Recently, however, the refrain has returned to our correspondence, but those using the sign-off can no longer be accused of not knowing how to switch it off (it’s easy) or gloating (it’s not a big deal). Rather the phrase has become an important part of online decorum. Including the sign off contains an innate apology for the brevity of the message. It begs forgiveness for any spelling or grammatical errors. It allows a little wiggle rooms for errant emojis. It is a nod of acknowledgement that you are on the hoof and doing as well as can be expected.



And it works. The researchers Caleb T Carr and Chad Stefaniak found in their paper Sent From My iPhone: The Medium and Message as Cues of Sender Professionalism in Mobile Telephony that those receiving a message containing spelling and grammatical errors forgiving of the mistakes when sent from a phone. What’s more,it boosted credibility over and above a perfectly worded message without the caveat. They also found for a poorly worded and incorrectly spelled message from a desktop or laptop, credibility dropped. Users forgave errors attributed to the constraints of writing on a tiny touch screen, but not mistakes made on a computer.

It is no great secret that instant messaging and smartphones are changing how we communicate with each other. Who would have thought the fullstop, a stalwart of grammar, would become so often redundant. And yet the taut manner and abrupt line breaks we engage with when using our phones has made it pretty clear when a sentence has come to its end.

Manners and etiquette take time to evolve. They develop according the the conventions and norms of the culture in which they exist. The very first iPhone was launched late in 2007, and how we interact with it and others through it is still very much in flux. We’re still getting a handle on who it is and isn’t appropriate to send the aubergine or water droplets emoji to – and what it means when someone send them to us. Crucially, manners require a lot of reading between the lines; respecting the various nudges and nuances of behaviour that imply what we don’t want to say outright. Sent From My iPhone makes for the most polite way of letting on that this fresh hell of being always accessible can be a perpetual inconvenience, and that we’re just doing the best we can.