Meta (aka Facebook) today announced the introduction of Messenger "shortcuts," a new Slack-style command system that allows users to speed up communication and get messages to their intended recipients.
Building on the @username tagging method to direct a message to a specific person in a chat, the new system introduces @everyone for grabbing everyone's attention in a group chat, and /silent to send a message to members of a chat without them being immediately notified about it during their off hours.
Messenger is also gaining additional shortcuts over the next few weeks that aim to be both practical and fun, such as /Pay to send and receive money within one-on-one Messenger chats (U.S only) and /gif to easily find and send GIFs. Users need only type /gif and then their chosen topic to see GIF options appear.
Lastly, Messenger on iOS is soon to support /shrug and /tableflip to more easily convey the old-school text-based emoticons ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻. Meta says these are just the first of many more shortcuts coming to Messenger later this year.
Friday October 2, 2026 12:59 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
In a post on its developer news website today, Apple announced that it will be introducing "additional controls" for the "Full Disk Access" setting on macOS due to new risks posed by AI agents. This announcement comes amid the rise of always-on AI agents like Meta's Muse and OpenAI's Dots, which have prompted privacy concerns.
"Some developers are using Full Disk Access in ways that could...
Thursday October 1, 2026 1:37 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple on Instagram today shared a curated gallery of six photos shot on the iPhone Duo. The photos were shot by American photographers Jake Michaels and Jason Nocito, as part of a project commissioned by Apple.
iPhone Duo is equipped with four cameras:A rear 48-megapixel Fusion Main camera
A rear 48-megapixel Ultra Wide camera
A front 12-megapixel Center Stage camera in the outer display
A...
Thursday October 1, 2026 8:42 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
In a text message sent to customers today, AT&T acknowledged that some iPhone 18 Pro Max devices on its network are experiencing cellular issues.
AT&T said that customers should immediately update to iOS 27.0.1, despite the fact that many affected users have said that the update does not resolve the issues. There are now at least thousands of users that have experienced this problem,...
Apple's first foldable iPhone, with a book-style design featuring a 5.4-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch inner display with a minimal crease down the middle.