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I have been searching for this on Google for a while and maybe I'm not wording it right because I'm not an expert iPhone developer, but what I'm wondering is if there is some kind of notification or system event that my iPhone application I'm developing can "hook into" that will get raised whenever a text message arrives on my phone. I don't need to be able to read the message. I just need to know when a text message has arrive on my phone. If possible, I'd like to be able to get the phone number of the person sending the message. Is this possible in Objective-C/Cocoa?

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Short answer: no –  Macmade Aug 16 '11 at 17:23
Wow that really suprises me. I know it can be done in Android because I wrote my application in Android first (since I know Android development well) and I just always assumed that iPhones could do at least the same thing as an Android device could. –  icemanind Aug 16 '11 at 17:28
Yep... That's very sad... BTW, you can also use Java to develop Android apps, and you can't on iOS... Different platforms, different rules. –  Macmade Aug 16 '11 at 17:42

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No, you can't do this with the public iOS APIs.

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Heck, you can't even do this with Push. –  noa Aug 16 '11 at 17:28
Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I understand that iOS 5 will have something called iMessage which WILL allow me to do this, but only using iPhone 5's and iOS 5, right? –  icemanind Aug 16 '11 at 17:57
iOS 5 is still in beta and under NDA; if you'd like to discuss it you should use devforums.apple.com. –  jtbandes Aug 16 '11 at 18:01
Is there any notification in iOS6, when a text message arrives on iphone ? –  Ram Jan 28 '13 at 8:24
"No, you can't do this with the public iOS APIs." :) –  jtbandes Jan 28 '13 at 8:28

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