how to get the message when receiving the “kCTMessageReceivedNotification” notification on IOS5

Here’s what I found …

Just looking at the dumped private APIs, it looks like ChatKit.framework could help. Take a look at
CKSMSService.h

or CKMadridService.h for iMessage messages.

I did quickly attempt to swizzle my own method in, for a couple methods in CKSMSService:

- (void)_receivedMessage: (id)arg1 replace:(BOOL)arg2 replacedRecordIdentifier:(int)arg3 postInternalNotification:(BOOL)arg4;

- (void)_receivedMessage: (id)arg1 replace:(BOOL)arg2 postInternalNotification:(BOOL)arg3;

but on iOS 5.0.1 I didn’t see either of those get called (maybe my error?). So, I tried to just get the message directly from the sqlite SMS database. Note … I didn’t build the full app, to register for notifications. I’m assuming your code to get the kCTMessageReceivedNotification is ok … it just doesn’t give you the SMS content anymore. So, if you put the following code in your notification handler, you should be able to see the message text:

- (NSString *) mostRecentSMS  { 
    NSString *text = @"";

    sqlite3 *database;
    if(sqlite3_open([@"/private/var/mobile/Library/SMS/sms.db" UTF8String], &database) == SQLITE_OK) {
        sqlite3_stmt *statement;

        // iOS 4 and 5 may require different SQL, as the .db format may change
        const char *sql4 = "SELECT text from message ORDER BY rowid DESC";  // TODO: different for iOS 4.* ???
        const char *sql5 = "SELECT text from message ORDER BY rowid DESC";

        NSString *osVersion =[[UIDevice currentDevice] systemVersion];         
        if([osVersion hasPrefix:@"5"]) {
            // iOS 5.* -> tested
            sqlite3_prepare_v2(database, sql5, -1, &statement, NULL);
        } else {
            // iOS != 5.* -> untested!!!
            sqlite3_prepare_v2(database, sql4, -1, &statement, NULL);
        }

        // Use the while loop if you want more than just the most recent message
        //while (sqlite3_step(statement) == SQLITE_ROW) {
        if (sqlite3_step(statement) == SQLITE_ROW) {
            char *content = (char *)sqlite3_column_text(statement, 0);
            text = [NSString stringWithCString: content encoding: NSUTF8StringEncoding];
            sqlite3_finalize(statement);
        }

        sqlite3_close(database);
    }
    return text;
}    

Now, make sure this app is installed in /Applications/. If you just build this app, and install normally with Xcode, you’ll get a permission denied error opening the sqlite database, because of app sandboxing.

My code snippet just gets the most recent text content. Here’s an example of doing a little more with the database. Look at the QuerySMS method.

Also, here’s a link on the database format of sms.db. You can find what else you need in there. Or, just copy the sms.db to your computer, and browse it with something like the Firefox SQLiteManager plugin. Good luck!

Update: some information from a question I posted on multi-process SQLite thread safety on iOS