All good features, for certain folks! What would be great is ability to send view once pictures and videos like on WhatsApp.
That would be terrible.
It's a security breach waiting to happen. Plus, how do parents shut this off? I mean, really, can you imagine your teenaged daughter coming home from school all depressed and down in the dumps because some ****** at school sent her a threat that disappeared moments after she read it?
No way. No no no way, "read once" and "view once" are terrible ideas!
It seems like you can block custom backgrounds, but it's an app-wide setting, not on a chat-by-chat basis. And if I'm right on that, I'll just turn it off then.
Me too. More on custom backgrounds a little ways down...
You sure can have background battles where you just swap back and forth. I would not be surprised to see spam messages start to include them, and while I haven't tried an NSFW picture, it seems to be possible to just choose whatever you want. Hopefully we get per-conversation options for this setting, because right now it's all or nothing.
Background battles are a horrible idea! Please read on...
Yes, there will be background battles! When any participant changes the background, the new background is instantly applied for everyone in the thread. This update syncs across all devices for all participants, provided they are running iOS 26, iPadOS 26, or macOS 26. I think that will be a great way to interject some playfulness and personality into chats beyond just message content.
This used to happen in email systems using Outlook and Microsoft Exchange. I had one particular team member who would send EVERY EMAIL with some polka-dotted simulated stationery "paper" look behind her typed words. I hated this because whenever I did a reply or a forward from her email, then MY OUTGOING email would have her "stationery" applied.
That's not my style! And as a leader in the company we were in, it wasn't the company's style either!
So every damned time she sent me an email and I needed to reply (which was probably 90% of the time), I would have to "convert to plain text", then convert back to HTML or RTF (I don't remember which), and THEN re-apply my Outlook signature.
And then if she replied to me, I'd get her background all over again! Oh God, please stop the madness; I just don't have time for background wars! Is there a way I can just disable it for the whole chat group...kind of like vetoing it? Sometimes, we humans just overcustomize way too much. We need to slow our roll!
“Graphic design is my passion”
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If that was the new Lifesavors mint candy, I'd buy it in bulk from Sam's Club or Costco...that looks yummy!
View-once sounds good, but the feature is somewhat of a security gimmick, and can be worked around without other security measures in place. There are easier and safer ways of sending data securely. That said, your first safeguard should be quick assessments of your trust relationship with the recipient(s) and their need to know the data you are sending.
I wholeheartedly agree. But I'm much more concerned about kids and teens receiving threats that disappear. Or adults. Can you imagine an estranged husband using this as a tool to threaten his wife? Or an employer saying/"hinting" that an employee needs to work some unpaid overtime in violation of labor law?
I say "no". Or if they're going to implement it, every user should be able to shut it off in their preferences. Kind of like a veto to other people's bad behavior.
I would like to see delivery and read receipts in group messages. Right now, it behaves like an individual message that didn't send so I never know it was seen until the first reply. Maybe just a counter?
"Read by 4 people"
Ooooh, now THAT would be GREAT! And would be better yet, if you could click or hover (I know, "hover" on an iPhone) and get a list of who read it...kind of like how MacRumors works with emoticon feedback/ratings.
