Texting Etiquette & Safety: 5 Rules for Keeping Your Kids & Teens Secure & Drama-Free
By Stephanie O'Leary
Okay, so you’ve taken the leap and handed your child or teen a smartphone. You may feel like you’ve made the biggest decision already; but if you want to keep your child safe, you have many more decisions to make ahead of you. I hear a lot of chatter about how to keep kids safe on social media (which is a critically important topic), but there’s not as much guidance when it comes to one of the iPhone’s simplest features: text messages. In addition to keeping kids and teens safe while texting, we need to make sure they understand texting etiquette. Here, I’ll touch on the five most important things you and your child need to know to stay safe, secure, and polite when it comes to texting.
Animoji is a new iMessage feature that currently is only available on the iPhone X. Animojis are animated emojis, and the technology required to create them is really incredible, with far-reaching potential applications. The Animojis feature allows iPhone X owners to animate various characters in ten-second videos and send them to friends. When you move your face, the Animoji automatically moves with you. With Animojis, you are essentially animating your own face, as though you were in a cartoon right from the comfort of your iPhone. The first iteration of Animojis allowed you to be a unicorn, the poop emoji, a panda, a chicken, and more. With iOS 11.3, Apple has added a bear, a dragon, a lion, and a skull. Here’s how to use Animojis on your iPhone X.
How to Use Business Chat on iPhone with iOS 11.3
By Leanne Hays
Apple announced the Apple Business Chat platform at WWDC 2017 and iOS 11.3 has finally introduced us to the program. The Business Chat platform allows iPhone users to connect with companies through iMessages, or from the businesses' app or website, rather than talking on the phone. Apple is rolling out Business Chat slowly; it's only available as a beta version right now, with a limited number of partner companies. Let's stay ahead of the curve and learn how to use Business Chat on our iPhones.
Here’s how to sort texts from Contacts and unknown senders in iMessages on your iPhone.
- Open the Settings app.
- Scroll down and tap on Messages.
- Scroll down to Message Filtering and toggle on Filter Unknown Senders.
Kik for iPad: How to Download the Kik App on Your iPad
By Leanne Hays
Kik is a free messaging app that lets you send text messages, videos, GIFs, stickers, and more to friends who've also downloaded the Kik app. Kik users can also find new friends to message; and since the Kik app has over 300 million users, the odds are good that you'll find at least a few people you'd like to chat with. It's easy to get started using Kik; rather than using your phone number to create an account, all you need is an email address and username. Once you've downloaded Kik and created your account, you can use the app to message your friends who are also on the platform, and invite other people in your phone contacts to join. There's one problem though: Kik is easy to download on your iPhone, but what about Kik for iPad? Despite the lack of an official Kik app for iPad, there are ways to work around this missing offering. Let's get started learning how to get Kik for iPad.
Way back in 2013 Instagram introduced direct messaging, called Instagram Direct, to the popular photo-sharing platform. In that iteration, direct messaging, or DMing, had to include a picture taken and edited in the Instagram app. Due to popular demand, Instagram now offers text-only direct messaging, which is really convenient for individuals who not only use the app to create, share, and explore photography, but also as an easy way to stay in touch with friends without switching to another platform or messaging app. Did you know that not only can you direct message friends on Instagram, you can also dm groups of friends? Let's get started learning how to create group conversations with or without pictures in Instagram on your iPhone.
Tagging someone on Instagram is pretty straightforward. If you’re viewing an Instagram photo you really like that you want to share with a friend, you can simply tag them in the comments and they'll receive a notification. But did you know you can also send an Instagram picture as a dm, or direct message? If you choose this option, it's more private because you don't have to mention them in the public comments. Let's learn how to direct message a picture on Instagram, or how to just tag someone on an Instagram photo without sending them a dm.
Signal: How to Get the Encrypted Chat App for Your iPad
By Leanne Hays
Signal is a privacy app that uses end-to-end encryption for individual and group texts, videos, documents, voice, and picture messaging. Open Whisper, Signal's parent company, produced Signal using grants and donations, utilizing Open Source software, with the aim of providing a free and secure platform for worldwide communication, without SMS or MMS fees—this even includes free long-distance calls to anyone, anywhere in the world who also has the Signal app! No one at Signal or anywhere else can read or view communications on the platform, they can only be viewed by the individual user, who can also choose when each message will disappear. Since the whole point of an encrypted communication app is to ensure privacy, Signal is free of tracking, affiliate marketers, and ads. Signal uses your existing address book and phone number, and will only allow you to register one mobile device, so you'll need to choose if you want to use your iPhone or iPad. Getting Signal on your iPhone is free and easy, it pops right up in the App Store, but Signal for iPad is a bit more complicated. Read on to learn how to get Signal on your iPad!
With iOS 10, Apple introduced Message Effects that allow you to add a bit of fun to the messages you send. You could make confetti rain or a laser show ensue when the recipient opened it. With iOS 11, Apple adds two new Message Effects— Echo and Spotlight. We’ll go over what each Message Effect does and how to use it. Here’s how to use the new Message Effects with iOS 11 on iPhone.
How to Save Photos Taken Within Messages to the Photos App
By Conner Carey
If you take a photo within Messages, it isn’t automatically saved to your iPhone. If you take a photo you really like, you’ll want to manually save it with this tip. It’s nice that iPhone doesn’t automatically save those photos so that you aren’t accidentally taking up too much space or saving private photos meant only for the conversation. But if you send a photo you like, here’s how to save it to the Photos app.
Text message stickers for iOS devices are a great way to add an extra personalized touch to your iMessages. If you have an iPhone or iPad running iOS 10 or later, then you have access to the plethora of texting stickers that are available in the Messages App Store.
How to Delete Attachments from Messages without Deleting the Conversation
By Sarah Kingsbury
All those cute pictures, funny memes, and hilarious gifs your friends send you in Messages can take up a surprising amount of your iPhone's storage capacity. Each attachment is saved to the message conversation thread, which is great if you decide to save a couple of the photos. But if you’re someone who doesn't often delete older messages, you can easily free up some phone storage by deleting the attachments. And luckily, you can delete attachments from Messages without deleting the conversation.
How to Download Stickers for Facebook Messenger on iPhone
By Conner Carey
Facebook’s selection of free stickers is so much better than Apple’s, which is one of the many reasons users love Messenger so much. Stickers in Facebook Messenger work very similarly to stickers in Messages: you can download sticker packs and send them to friends. Since Facebook Messenger has such a great variety of stickers, they’re a lot of fun to use. Here’s how to download stickers for Facebook Messenger on iPhone.
How to Send and Request Money via Facebook Messenger on iPhone
By Conner Carey
Did you know that you can send and receive money from your friends via Facebook Messenger? I didn’t until I received a notification informing me that my sister had sent me $5. It seems there are a million apps for sending friends and family money these days, from Venmo to Snapchat. But if you already have a debit card connected to your Facebook account, then using Messenger to send or request money on iPhone is the quickest way to go. Here’s how to send and request money via Messages on iPhone.
How to Attach a Video to Messages on iPhone
By Donna Schill
Capturing special or funny moments is one of the things our iPhones do best. And sometimes, taking a video is the best way to do that, such as when you want to show friends or family the new trick you taught your puppy. But once you’ve recorded your cute video, you’ll need to attach it to a message to send it to a friend. Here’s how to attach a video to Messages on iPhone.
How to Deactivate iMessage on iPhone
By Conner Carey
If you’re ditching your iPhone, whether permanently or temporarily, you’re going to need to deactivate iMessage. This is due to an issue Apple had to solve a while ago, wherein users who switched to an Android, or other non-iPhone smartphone, were missing texts from friends who were sending iMessages. If you still have the iPhone that you need to disable iMessage on, the process is super quick and easy. Likewise, there’s a simple solution even if you’ve already sold or given your old iPhone away. If you switched from an iPhone to another iPhone, this shouldn’t be an issue for you. But if you’re switching (or planning to switch) to an Android device, use this tip to deregister your iPhone from iMessage before or after you’ve gotten your new smartphone. Here’s how to deactivate and deregister iMessage on iPhone.
You’ve always been able to send sketches and drawings to other Apple Watch users with Apple Watch. Now those same text message drawing options come to iPhone and iPad with Digital Touch on iOS 10. You can send sketches, fireballs, and even your heartbeat in iMessages to other iPhone users. You can also choose a photo and write your Digital Touch message over it before sending your iPhone text drawings to a friend. We’ll go over all the different things you can do with Digital Touch on iPhone or iPad. Here’s how to send Digital Touch drawings in Messages with iOS 10 on iPhone.
How to Remove Apps (& Stickers) from Messages on iPhone
By Conner Carey
With iOS 10, Apple gave the Messages app its own App Store. You can use apps within Messages to play games, share stickers, invite friends to dinner, and more. Luckily, removing apps and stickers from Messages is even easier than downloading them. Here’s how to remove apps from messages on iPhone.
With iOS 10, you can send stickers to your friends that you’ve acquired from the App Store that’s within Messages. Our tip on Stickers in Messages will give you the full rundown if you’re not familiar with how to get and use stickers. If you’ve been using stickers with your friends, you’ve probably received a sticker from a friend that you liked and wanted but didn’t know how to find in the App Store. Well Apple built an easy shortcut into Messages for this exact instance. Here’s how to get the same stickers that your friend just sent you in Messages.
How to Edit & Format Text on iPhone or iPad
By Jim Karpen
Once you get the hang of editing text on iPhone, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised how easy it is. Furthermore, adding italics, bold text, or an underline on the iPhone is also easily doable. You can also indent right, select, copy, and paste text on the iPhone. It all starts with highlighting the text you want to edit. Let’s jump in; here’s how to edit and format text on the iPhone.