After receiving many requests for the feature, Signal introduced read receipts last year to its mobile apps. However, some users don't like the idea other people knowing when they've read messages. Luckily, Signal lets you disable this feature and reclaim a little privacy.
Let's say you want to send out a message to all of your friends. Normally, you'd have to put all of the recipients into one giant group thread to do this. But when people started responding to your message, everyone in the group would get a notification, so your friends would probably be annoyed that you started the group thread in the first place. Luckily, if you're using WhatsApp, this isn't an issue.
When somebody is in the middle of rapid firing you some text messages and they become too much for you to bear, you have a few options on your iPhone. You can simply leave the conversation, if it's an iMessage group chat with four or more participants, or you can put the whole message thread on silent, which applies to everyone, no matter if it's iMessage, SMS, MMS, or a group conversation.
WhatsApp sneakily made some security changes to iCloud backups without your knowledge, ladies and gents. Not that strengthening security is a bad thing, but still!
We've all been there... admit it. You sent a couple messages, but your friend had the "Read Receipts" option turned off in WhatsApp, so after a few minutes, you start wondering if they're away from their phone right now or just flat-out ignoring you.
Whatever you think of Google's new Pixel phones, the one thing we know for sure is that these are the most polarizing devices in recent memory. On the one hand, we've seen reviews in which longtime Android users say they'll be walking away from the OS all together thanks to Pixel. On the other hand, you've got the iPhone-obsessed David Pierce over at WIRED saying he'll be switching immediately.
A human rights activist from the United Arab Emirates recently stumbled upon three gaping security loopholes in iOS that work by enticing you to tap a link sent to your iPhone. Ahmed Mansoor received a text message from an unknown number roughly two weeks ago, but instead of following the link it included, he sent the message over to a security researcher at Citizen Lab.
Prior to this year's WWDC, there were lots of rumors that Apple might finally be making a version of iMessage for Android. While that never came to fruition, a few big updates to a very useful app have now ensured that we can seamlessly send and receive Android texts in Apple Messages on our Macs.
Depending on your carrier and the texting app that you use, sending long SMS messages from an Android phone often results in the recipient being hit with a barrage of fragmented, out of order texts.
Now that smartphones have ensured that we're connected to the internet 24/7, online privacy has become more important than ever. With data-mining apps hoping to sell your information for targeted ads, and government agencies only one subpoena away from knowing every detail of your private life, encryption has become our last line of defense.
Cellular carriers like to nickel-and-dime us out of every bit of money they can feasibly justify, so as consumers, we owe it to ourselves to make sure that we're getting our money's worth.
Making sure you have the best gallery app available for your Android device used to be as easy as just installing QuickPic. But late last year, Android's top photo-viewing app was sold to a company who is notorious for permission spamming, so QuickPic quickly lost everyone's approval.
With as much creativity and freedom that we have on Android, it feels a little underwhelming that the only gesture we can perform on the status bar is a downward swipe to expose the notification tray or quick settings. Maybe this is a field for Android to expand on in the future, but until that day, third-party developers are exploring this now.
If your iPhone is rebooting or your Messages app is constantly crashing, you might be the victim of an iOS exploit or just a buggy software update. While one problem sounds worse than the other, they both can get annoying real quick when you can't send any messages or even read new ones.
Thanks to a newly discovered iOS exploit, a text message can now ruin your day. It will literally cripple your iPhone, and the worst thing is that anyone with a phone that supports double-byte unicode can do it to you. While it initially sounded like bullshit, we tried it out several times here, and to our surprise, it worked perfectly each time.
We have all seen videos of people walking off of platforms and into street signs because they were too distracted by their phones to pay attention. This has become such a problem that cities have even considered fining pedestrians for texting and walking.
Your favorite instant messaging service might not be your friend's preferred choice of communicating, and your sibling might prefer yet another. So when they send you messages via different apps, it's like having one address but multiple mailboxes on a single porch.
Apple is bringing one of the biggest updates ever to its Messages app, including a feature that will allow users to send audio messages back and forth with the press of a button. Goodbye, voicemail.
The recently released HTC One M8 and the upcoming Samsung Galaxy S5 are both boasting selective focus features for their camera apps, but with a 13 megapixel camera, the GS4 can take some pretty stellar pictures, too.
Welcome back, my budding hackers! In previous tutorials, we've looked at some of the basic commands and concepts for using Linux. Along the way, I realized that I've failed to provide you with some basic background material on the stdin, stdout, and stderror.
I read, walk, and do lunges all at once. Time is money, and I'm all for multitasking whenever I can. Thankfully, my Samsung Galaxy S3 is extremely good at it, but extremely good could still be extremely better.
In the UK, 20 percent of divorce filings include the word "Facebook." You may think you're being slick by using the site to chat with your ex, but the problem is that Facebook saves everything, and I mean everything. All someone needs is your login information and they have access to everything you've ever said on Facebook, public or private.
Apps sure do run great on Android tablets! If you caught that little whiff of sarcasm, you probably already figured out I was lying. There is a definite lack of good, high-quality apps specifically made for Android tablets. If you've ever tried Facebook or Twitter on a tablet, you know exactly what I mean.
Social media is where we post our thoughts for the world to see, but sometimes a little more exclusivity is needed. And that's where Scrambls comes in.
Facebook has been revamping its Messenger apps these past few months, trying to lure in more users. Competing in an already crowded market of third-party messaging applications, Facebook Messenger just upped the ante, by introducing voice messaging.
When browsing the web, I enjoy my privacy. It's reassuring that I can peruse the internet without the worry of having my activity tracked back to me, allowing me to leave fun, anonymous comments when I get the urge to troll.
When you're a kid, the best part about Halloween is the free candy, but if you're past your trick-or-treating years, there are still plenty of things you can do. With all the costumes, scary stories, and pranks, what's not to love? And now, you can even use your smartphone to celebrate.
In this how to video, you will learn how to check your voice mail in Microsoft Office Outlook. Your exchange administrator must enable unified messaging for these messages to appear. First, open the program to set up your voice mail options. Go to options and click the voice mail tab. Your phone number should appear in the correct form. Click call to check your voice mail. Enter your number and click x and okay. Now you are ready to listen to your voice mail messages on your computer. From Ou...
Tie loose ends together - in the literal and original sense sense of the phrase - by sewing together the ends and/or hems of your knitting projects like a pro. Whether you're fusing together two pieces of wool-knitted cloth to form the back of a beautiful winter sweater or just want to join patchwork knits into a rasta-cool beanie, knowing how to stick pieces together is integral for a tidy project.
Grrr! This cowlick is driving me crazy! OK, time to get serious and put that cowlick into place. This how to video gives you the help you need to show that cowlick who's boss. You're going to need mousse, gel and a blow dryer to tame the area. Once you're set up, you'll learn once and for all how to make your cowlick behave!
Are you trying to tame a nasty cowlick? If so, this helpful how to from Stacey Staley of Blonde Toronto, shows you just what to do. You'll want to be working in the direction of your cowlick, otherwise you'll only be making matters worse.
Unless you're genetically blessed - and we mean SERIOUSLY genetically blessed, a la Halle Berry, you will get pimples in your life. In fact, you will get many of them, especially in your teens and twenties.
It took all the way until firmware version 4.2 for Apple to add a function to the iPhone that's been present on other phones for years: the ability to set custom ringtones / sounds for text messages from different contacts. This video will show you how quick and easy it is to set this up on the new firmware.
In the field of break dancing, there is either win or lose, no try. That's because the superior upper body strength and advanced hand-eye-leg coordination required by the dance style are extremely demanding, leaving only a select few who work hard and get really good.
Some users are experiencing difficulties using the MSS picture messaging and FaceTime voice chat features on their jailbroken iPhone 4. This tutorial shows you an easy fix after jailbreaking your phone - all you need to do is go into Cydia and upgrade all packages in order to regain your features.
Did the world need another Lady Gaga? Apparently so. 2010 has brought us another techno-pop-starlet to love / hate: Kesha. She's become a fashion icon rather quickly, and this video will show you how you can use one of her looks yourself. Specifically, you'll learn how to create an approximation of the make-up look from the music video for "Take it Off".
Kesha, love her or hate her, is statistically the most successful music artist of this decade, and she has become a full-fledged icon in a very short time. This video will show you how you can create the makeup look from the bowling alley scene in the music video for "Blah Blah Blah". If you like your eyes to be blue, there is no shortage of that here.
Colbie Callait's new single "I Never Told You" is a song about regret that anyone can relate to. In the song, Callait sings about a past relationship in which she failed to tell her lover just how much he meant to her. The song is bittersweet and soulful without being too mushy.
Wow. Forget about buying an expensive pro-style digital camcorder. You can make your DSLR camera into a moviemaker camera with a simple DIY shoulder mount. The goal of this video is to give you a way to create a low budget way of mounting your camera and necessary gear onto a cheap shoulder mount. It works really well. See for yourself!
Want to look totally pro when you deal blackjack, or even just when you're playing Go Fish with your friends? Then check out this easy yet super impressive card shuffling trick. Cutting cards can either be boring or a spectacle, so add some spice to your card game by shuffling it impressively in one hand.