As soon as you click to send a message to your friend, Kik Messenger lets you know, step-by-step, how far along that message is in its journey to your friend’s device.
Most of the status letters are pretty straight-forward, but on some devices the “D” has a different meaning depending on its shade. Maybe you’ve wondered, “What does the light “D” on Kik mean?”
Why We Like Kik Messenger
Those of us who have used Kik Messenger a while know that it is one of the most feature-rich social chat apps you can use. For anyone who has not been using Kik Messenger for very long, or even someone who has not used it at all, I am going to review some of the features I like about the app that make Kik Messenger stand out from the others.
No Charges on Kik
The first reason a lot of us turn to a social text app like Kik Messenger is to avoid charges on our mobile phone bill. A lot of usage plans allow a certain number of text messages per month. After that, there is a per-message fee. Those fees add up quickly when you’re enjoying a casual chat with friends. With Kik Messenger, there is no fee for any number of messages you send in a month. You’re free to chat freely without a thought to paying a cent with Kik.
Other phone plans allow unlimited free messages to people on your plan with you, or using the same carrier as you do, but charge for text messages to people that are on a different carrier’s service plan. Kik Messenger works seamlessly across platforms so that you never have to think about what kind of phone or what mobile service provider a friend is using.
Kik Shops
I really like Kik Messenger’s specialty shops. In case you don’t know, Kik Messenger has a Smiley Shop, Sticker Store, and Bot Shop. My favorite smiley pack is the Quac Flock. They’re little avocados with sayings like, “Haas-ta la vista, Baby,” “Don’t Pitty Me,” and “Holy Guacamole!” If zombies are more your theme, you’d probably like The Smiling Dead with emoji like, “No Sanctuary,” “Love Bites,” “Dead Inside,” and “Zombie Rage.” Other collections are Ninja Turtles, Powerpuff Girls, Frankie the Fox, Dave the Cat, and The Dumplings.
From the Bot Shop, I’m still enjoying the ongoing choose-your-adventure game of Zombie Invasion, and it’s always fun to play a few rounds of tic tac toe with Tickers the bot. There are all sorts of game bots for – trivia games, adventure games, strategy games – whatever you like, it’s probably there. And of course there are other kinds of bots. One will give you the weather, another helps with fashion and makeover tips, and others still will help you find a job or plan a workout.
The best bot friend out there just might be the Kik Points bot. The really neat thing about all of the Kik Messenger shops is that nothing ever costs you a cent. When you want to buy a sticker or emoji, you use an in-app currency called Kik Points (kp for short). It’s not like other apps and games where you pay for the currency of the realm and then use them in the game. Kp’s are always free. You earn more by conversing with the Kik Points bot and completing easy and fun offers. Today, for example, I earned 370 kp. Believe it or not, 100 of them came from creating an emoji for my dog through an offer from The Secret Life of Pets movie ad. It was so fun and now I can use that emoji in my kiks!
Message Notifications
Those are just a couple of the reasons I and millions of others choose Kik Messenger for our main chat and texting app. Kik brings with it dozens of other cool features, like the message status indicator.
When I send a message to a friend, Kik Messenger displays a receipt status indicator. In the example below, you can see the “R” next to the message, “Hi,” in the purple bubble. That “R” tells me that the message was sent, delivered, and read.
When I see a “D” indicator next to a message I have sent, it means the message has been delivered to my friend’s device but he has not read it. Depending on the kind of smartphone my friend is using, the “D” might show up at a dark or solid “D” from the start, or it might appear as a light or faded “D” at first.
The Light (Faded) “D”
The faded “D” appears when your friend is not actively using Kik Messenger at the moment you send a message. It means that a push notification has been sent but the message is not considered fully delivered because Kik Messenger is not open and in use by your friend right now.
Lots of apps use push notifications to let someone know that there is an update, alert, or new activity that they should check at their earliest convenience. This lets users of the app stay informed about what is happening on the app without having to keep the app running in the background and eating up their battery so much. These links tell you more about managing push notifications on the iPhone and Android.
“The text is a limited field of possible constructions.”- Paul Ricoeur
When we send a message and see that it is delivered, we start a mental countdown of sorts while waiting for our friend to read it and respond. We know the message has reached our friend when we see the “D” status indicator. Kik Messenger lets you know that your friend isn’t even using the Kik Messenger app right now by leaving the “D” status indicator in a lighter shade when the app is not presently open and active on their device.
This is helpful because it lets you know that you may not be getting a response back from your friend right away. It may turn out that she receives the push notification, sees it is a message from you in Kik Messenger, and she goes right to open the app to read your message. If this is the case, as soon as she opens Kik Messenger the “D” indicator will go from light (faded) to dark (solid).
When the “D” does not change, for all you know she might not even be near her phone right now. It is nice that the lighter “D” indicator lets you know the message is in her queue, so to speak, but not yet delivered in her Kik app so that you don’t sit there waiting.
Other Indication Statuses
While we’re talking about the meaning of the light “D” status, let’s quickly review all of the message indicator statuses we see in Kik Messenger.
- “S” – When you first send your text, the “S” status will appear. This tells you the message has left your phone and is on the way to your friend. It usually goes really fast so you might only catch a glimpse of it before the next status appears.
- “D” – As we have just covered, the “D” status means the message is in the process of or has been delivered to your friend’s device. When the “D” is in a lighter or faded shade, a push notification has been delivered but the Kik Messenger app is not active on the device right now. The “D” darkens once the Kik Messenger app is opened on your friend’s smartphone to indicate the message is fully delivered.
- “R” – Your friend has read your message when the status indicator changes to “R.”
- “…” – Three dots tell you that Kik Messenger is trying to send out your message. When your message is sent, the status will change to an “S.” If your message hangs in this status (“…”) for very long, you might want to check your connection to the Internet.
- “!” – A red exclamation mark tells you that your message failed. There is probably a problem with your Wi-Fi connection, so check on that and try to send your message again once it is fixed.
Kik Messenger uses all these codes to let us know how far along our message has gotten to our friend. There is one other notification you might see, though it’s not likely if you’ve been kikking back and forth with your friend recently:
Oops it looks like this person’s phone has been off/disconnected for a while. We’ll deliver your message when they connect again.
When you see this message, Kik Messenger is just letting you know that your friend hasn’t opened the app for a few days. Your message is there, and when your friend opens the Kik app they will see it, but Kik thinks you’d like to know the friend hasn’t been around for a little bit so they might not see your message right away.
All of these status codes combine to keep us in the loop on the progress of our messages from the moment we click to send until our intended recipient has received and read the message. The next time your message hangs in a faded “D” status, you will not have to question, “What Does The Light “D” On Kik Mean?” It is Kik Messenger’s way of letting you know exactly what’s up with your message right now. I think it’s a really neat feature in Kik’s status receipt system and look forward to what you have to say on it. Let me know in the comments if you like that Kik lets you know that only a push notification but not the full message has reached your friends. Thanks for reading!