Messages

iOS 10 tidbit: Spotlight Suggestions in Messages

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 12, 2016

On iOS 10, Spotlight Suggestions appear in more places than before. We recently told you about Spotlight Suggestions in the Look Up interface (formerly known as the Define feature). We also discussed iOS 10's expressive Messages app in depth and mentioned its super useful inline previews of URLs.

As it turns out, not only does Messages support inline previews of media URLs, but underlines specific terms in your chats—such as movie and app names—that Spotlight Suggestions can give you more info about.

iOS 10 tidbit: sending broken hearts via iMessage

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 12, 2016

iOS 10's much-enhanced Messages app includes the Digital Touch interface that first appeared on the Apple Watch. With Digital Touch, users can create iMessages that contain doodles, digital taps, video with effects and more.

We recently explained how Digital Touch can be taken advantage of to send nicely animated hearts to your recipients. Here's another iOS 10 tidbit: Messages on iOS 10 also lets you shoot animated broken hearts to someone for those times you wish to convey more specific feelings.

How to create and use custom vibration patterns on iPhone

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated July 18, 2025

Learn how to create custom vibration patterns on your iPhone and use them to know who's calling or texting you without even looking at the screen—even in silent mode.

iOS 10 tidbit: using Digital Touch in Messages to send kisses instead of hearts

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 12, 2016

Aside from a lot of other advances, iOS 10 turns the Messages app into a platform upon which developers can build downloadable stickers, full-screen animations and chat bubble effects. Messages in iOS 10 also supports Digital Touch, a feature that first debuted on the Apple Watch.

With the new Digital Touch interface in iOS 10 Messages, users can draw and sketch with their finger on photos and video, send hearts and create other digital effects on video. But as it turns out, users also have the option to send animated kisses instead of heart beats using a simple gesture.

iOS 10 tidbit: managing read receipts on a per-conversation basis

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 4, 2025

iOS 10 has a new hidden switch, called Emergency Bypass, which permits you to override your global Do Not Disturb setting on a per-contact basis. It's especially handy for those times when you wanna enable Messages notifications for a contact that isn't in your Favorites, even if Do Not Disturb is on.

A similar new feature in iOS 10's Messages app makes it easy to enable or disable read receipts, which tell the other person when you've read an incoming text, on a per-conversation basis.

iPhone 101: enabling the character counter for SMS messages on iPhone

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated August 14, 2018

Unlike iMessage, the SMS messages you send on your iPhone are regulated by your carrier and have a character limit of 160 characters.

We'll be showing you in this tutorial how you can turn on a character counter in your iPhone's Messages app so you can have a better idea of the length of the SMS messages you're sending.

Apple executive explains why iMessage isn’t on other platforms

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

In a broad reflective piece on Apple's WWDC keynote, noted tech journalist Walt Mossberg made some interesting comments regarding a recent rumor that Apple was considering bringing its iMessage service to Android. Turns out that isn't happening, and won't be in the near future.

Speaking to a "senior Apple executive," Mossberg says Apple is happy with the 1 billion+ active devices it currently caters to, so it doesn't feel an immediate need to grow its user base by expanding to other platforms. It also still considers its iMessage service a major iOS-exclusive feature.

iOS 10 preview: Messages does stickers, apps, animations & more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated June 20, 2016

Apple's iMessage system has officially become a chat platform in its own right as Messages in iOS 10 now supports third-party apps, stickers and more. In addition, Messages on iOS 10 brings out a number of useful improvements, including animated chat bubbles and full-screen motion backgrounds.

But we're just getting started: Messages on iOS 10 supports inline media previews, sports a redesigned built-in camera, provides downloadable stickers and apps, includes handwriting recognition, Digital Touch for your media and more.

Here's our walkthrough showing off every new feature in iOS 10 Messages.

Watch cool new iOS 10 Messages features in a video Apple ran during WWDC keynote

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 13, 2016

A supercharged Messages is definitely my killer app in iOS 10. Not only does it catch up to other messaging apps with perks like downloadable stickers, it actually leapfrogs them with cool new stuff such as full screen animations, chat bubbles that animate in specific ways to better convey your emotions, support for sketching and the Apple Watch's Digital Touch feature and what not.

In fact, Messages in iOS 10 is so jam-packed with improvements that Apple ran a cool video during the keynote showing them off.

Messages app updated in iOS 10 with new emoji features, Bubble effects and more

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

Also getting a big update in iOS 10 is the Messages app. New features include inline rich links, which open YouTube videos, images and other types of media—videos now play right within the app!—a built-in Camera viewfinder, and some great emoji improvements.

These improvements include 3x bigger emoji images within your messages, so you can see the icons in greater detail, and predictive emoji. Apple calls this "emojifiable." So the Messages app in iOS 10 can essentially guess emoji images for the words you tap on.

New jailbreak tweak enables sending text messages via Pebble

Anthony Bouchard ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Those who are using a Pebble smartwatch rather than Apple's own Apple Watch as an accessory for their iPhone are limited in features, but with a new jailbreak tweak dubbed TextSender for Pebble, there is at least some hope for extended functionality.

TextSender for Pebble will, as the name implies, allow those with a Pebble smartwatch to send text messages from their watch via their iPhone.

Kairos lets you schedule text messages to be sent later [jailbreak]

Anthony Bouchard ∙ May 18, 2016

Text message scheduling is a useful feature that I'm surprised Apple hasn't already built into iOS' Messages app as a stock feature. After all, sometimes you want to wish someone a Happy Birthday or wish them a great holiday and you may remember before the fact, but you forget when the time actually comes.

Kairos is a new jailbreak tweak that streamlines scheduling out text messages in iOS, and we'll show you how it works in this review.