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Messages is the default chat app for billions of Apple users. If you have an Apple device (but particularly an iPhone), you likely open the app dozens of times every day. And yet, this simple app can do a lot more than send texts. Whether you use it on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac, you can use these 10 hacks to make Messages a better and more productive chat app.Adjust your settings to filter out spam in Messages When you get a new text, you want it to be from a friend, not an obvious scam. Alas, the latter sort are all too frequent. But in recent years, Apple has added some helpful tools to filter out messages from unknown senders, and send obvious spam to its own unique folder.To set this up, open Settings > Apps > Messages, then choose both "Screen Unknown Senders" and "Filter Spam."...

Next spring, you'll notice a handful of new emojis pop up on your iPhone or Android device. As shared by Unicode Emoji Subcommittee Chair Jennifer Daniel, there are nine additions slated for 2027, including "Cracking Face," "Leftwards Thumb Sign," "Rightwards Thumb Sign," "Monarch Butterfly," "Pickle," "Lighthouse," "Meteor," "Eraser," and "Net With Handle." It's not the biggest update in emoji history, but it's a fun assortment. (I can imagine "Cracked Face" is going to get some use.) I always enjoy when new emojis hit the scene (who could live without the recent "Melting Face"), but I never really questioned how these emojis actually come to be. I imagine that's the same for most of us who use these icons. Maybe some of us think that the individual tech companies (e.g., Apple, Google, et...

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Javier Bardem as Max Cady in 'Cape Fear' Credit: Courtesy of Mark Hill / Apple TV Cape Fear is one of those stories with a premise so sturdy and reliable, it can be reinvented and reinterpreted endlessly. The original 1957 novel (titled The Executioners) remains a pulse-pounding thriller, and the two film adaptations (from 1962 and starring Robert Mitchum, and the Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro version from 1991) are wildly different in tone and approach but equally effective. Add to that list Apple TV’s brand-new take on the material, which brings a neon-lit sense of chaos and a modern edge of digital v...