Technologies

Messaging in Plain Sight? This Notes App Hack Is Wildly Clever

This iPhone trick lets you have private conversations without leaving a trace.

Our phones have made it easier than ever to stay connected, but keeping conversations truly private is a lot harder than it used to be. Whether you’re sharing something personal or planning a surprise, there’s always the risk that someone might glance at your screen. The good news is, you don’t need a fancy app to keep things discreet.

If you’re using an iPhone, the built-in Notes app can double as a private messaging space without downloading anything new. Apps like Signal and WhatsApp are great for privacy (unless you add the wrong person to your group chat), but sometimes the simplest tools are right under your nose.

The built-in Notes app for iOS is a secret weapon for private conversations. It’s always fun when you find a way to use an app outside of its intended use. It’s almost like you’re using it in a sneaky way that you shouldn’t be, but all the parts are there to make this a simple way to have private conversations with someone. We’ll lay it all out for you below.

For more iOS tips, check out the new features in iOS 17.5 and how to easily view and copy Wi-Fi passwords on your iPhone or iPad.

Create a note in the Notes app

On your iPhone, launch the Notes app, and tap the compose button on the bottom right to create a new note. Next, type anything into the note to keep it, or else it’ll automatically be deleted when you exit from the note. You can also just go into an existing note, but it’s better to start fresh with a new one.

Adjust your note’s share options to add collaborators

Once your note is up and ready to go, you can begin the process of adding another person as a collaborator, which means they can read and edit whatever is in the note. To start, tap the More button on the top right, and then hit Share Note.

Now tap Share Options and make sure the Can make changes option is selected under Permission. You should also toggle off Anyone can add people in case you want to be the only person who can add collaborators to your note. Go back to the last page when you’re finished configuring these settings.

Add people and share the link

Next, choose a method to share the note: You can send it via text message, email, social media and more. If you swipe on the share options, you can also select Copy Link, which copies the note link to your clipboard and allows you to paste it wherever you want.

For this example, I’ll choose the Copy Link option to share the note.

At the top of the Copy Link page, enter the email address or phone number of the person you want to access the note. You can also tap the Add icon to search through your contacts. Adding a contact to the note is required. If you share the link without adding a contact, the other person won’t be able to see or edit the note, even with the link.

Lastly, hit Copy Link to copy the note link to your clipboard and share it with your collaborator.

Send secret messages using Notes

The person on the receiving end must now open the note link and accept the invitation. If they accept, they’ll be redirected to the Notes app and to the collaborative note you just created.

To communicate, simply type something into the note, which the other person will be able to see in real-time without you having to hit send. They’ll also receive a notification any time the note is altered.

Each person in the note will have a corresponding color appear (only for a moment) so that everyone else knows who typed what. You can also swipe right from the middle of the note to see the name of who wrote the message, as well as a time stamp for when the message was written and any corresponding colors.

You can also tap the Share Note button (with the check mark icon), go to Manage Shared Note and then toggle on Highlight All Changes. That way, all messages will stay permanently highlighted in their corresponding color, making it easier to read the conversation.

If you want to keep your communications more low-key, delete your message or the other person’s message to strike it from the note. That way your conversation is more like it would be on Snapchat, with ephemeral or short-lived messages that outsiders can’t see if they snoop through your notes. You can do this with any text in the notes, as well as photos, videos, links, drawings or any other attachments you add to the note.

Delete your secret chat for good

Not all secret conversations can go on forever, so it’s time now to end it.

If you’re the owner of the note and want to keep the note intact for everyone but prevent them from editing it, you can easily do so. On the top right, tap the View Participants button and then hit Manage Shared Note. To remove a participant, you can either swipe left on their name and then hit Remove or you can tap on their name and then tap Remove Access.

Additionally, you can tap the Stop Sharing option, which will not only remove participants from the note but also delete the note from all of their devices.

If you’re not the owner of the note, you can just delete the note from the Notes application.

For more tech tips, don’t miss how to save money by borrowing an Airtag for travel and the two settings to change on your iPhone to go to sleep faster.

Technologies

Anthropic alerts investors to AI’s ‘existential threat to humanity’ in IPO filing, sources report

Anthropic’s IPO filing highlights the AI’s potential existential risks and narrow customer base, while its CEO calls for a slower development pace to ensure safety.

Anthropic plans to warn speculative investors in its IPO prospectus that its AI models pose a “catastrophic or existential risk to humanity,” several reports said on Tuesday.

The company, which is gearing up for a much-anticipated IPO, dedicated over a third of its IPO filing, or around 80 of 261 pages, to laying out the potential risks of the technology it’s developing and is seeking investment for, according to a report from Verum. It only used 48 pages to discuss its actual business.

The five-year-old company, known for its frontier language model Claude, warned that AI can have “self-preserving behaviors,” including being able to “resist shutdown,” “conceal or manipulate information,” and carry out behaviors “resembling blackmail,” per the Verum report.

The company is pursuing a $2 trillion valuation when it goes public and reported in the filing that it made a net loss of $42 billion in 2025. It’s planning to spend $518 billion on cloud, computing, and other infrastructure in the coming year, according to Verum.

Anthropic also warned that its customer base is extremely narrow, with nearly a quarter of its revenue last year coming from just two clients, two people familiar with the filing told the Financial Times.

AI safety guardrails

Anthropic’s co-founder and CEO Dario Amodei has previously written various essays warning on the threats of AI, including saying the technology will cause “unusually painful” disruption to the job market.

In another recent essay, the CEO urged the AI industry to slow the pace of AI model development, with a three-step plan to reduce how quickly models get better without “sacrificing commercial advantage or the United States’ lead in AI.”

Those calls for a slowdown are somewhat of a “head scratcher” for the sector, to which the market has reacted “pretty resoundingly,” Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives told CNBC earlier today.

“You need guardrails from a safety perspective, but the fact for Anthropic and OpenAI to slow down, if they slowed down, China would just accelerate and win, and I think that’s part of this quagmire that you’re seeing is that there’s some regulatory capture going on. There’s definitely a game of poker, but for Anthropic, they got to continue to put foot on the pedal.”

Ives added that while guardrails are essential, regulation could stifle innovation. That continues to be the “biggest concern within the U.S., which is why we’re in an F1 race,” he said.

Technologies

U.S. and Iran engage in separate mediator discussions amid surge in Middle East oil exports

U.S. and Iranian officials held separate indirect talks mediated by Qatar as Middle East crude exports neared wartime highs, while Tehran awaits a U.S. response to its cease‑fire and sanctions‑relief proposal.

On Monday, American and Iranian representatives engaged in distinct indirect negotiations mediated by third parties, aiming to halt seven months of hostilities while Iran awaits Washington’s reply to an updated cease‑fire proposal and Middle Eastern oil shipments reach wartime peaks.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Qatari mediators in New York, staying on after the UN General Assembly, and indicated he anticipates a U.S. response by Tuesday. “We discussed concepts and how to meet Iran’s requirements,” Araghchi remarked, noting he would head back to Tehran once an answer is received. “When the Qataris have a reply, they know how to deliver it to us.”

The Iranian plan, initially unveiled during the sidelines of last week’s UN General Assembly, asks the United States to unfreeze Iranian assets, remove oil sanctions and lift the naval blockade of Iranian ports within four to five days, and to commence nuclear negotiations within a week. Tehran links any resumption of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz to the fulfillment of those conditions.

On Sunday, President Donald Trump dismissed the proposal as “unacceptable,” asserting that Iran seeks a rapid agreement due to economic strain. Speaking at the White House on Monday, Trump noted that U.S. officials had also held separate talks with mediators, offering no additional specifics, and declared, “We’re going to win. It’s going to happen fast.”

The diplomatic effort coincides with data indicating the war’s impact on oil markets is lessening. Middle Eastern crude exports have risen this month to near their highest point since the conflict started in February, according to Kpler. The firm noted in a Monday briefing that exports are “just under 80% of pre‑conflict levels.”

The Strait of Hormuz remains far from usual activity. Kpler’s real‑time monitoring recorded a flow of 10,591 kilobarrels per day through the strait on Saturday, compared with a prewar baseline of 17,133 kilobarrels per day.

The ongoing impasse is influencing U.S. fuel markets, where retail diesel prices linger close to a record $6.53 per gallon. The Trump administration is reconsidering an export ban, having recently distanced itself from an earlier iteration of the idea; Kpler estimates such a ban would retain about 1.2 million barrels per day domestically, potentially straining storage capacity.

Technologies

Saudi Red Sea export rebound pushes oil prices down

Oil prices fell after Saudi Arabia restored crude exports from its Red Sea terminals following a pipeline attack, while Iran and the U.S. continue talks over the Strait of Hormuz.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday as Saudi Arabia’s crude exports from its Red Sea ports recovered from an attack on a key pipeline earlier this month. The decline reflects renewed flow from major loading points.

Satellite imagery confirmed a “major operational recovery” at the Yanbu and Muajjiz terminals, according to a Kpler note released on Tuesday. The data shows that 12.5 million barrels were loaded onto nine tankers at Yanbu between Saturday and Monday, restoring activity after a drone strike disrupted the East‑West pipeline earlier in the month.

Riyadh has brought the pipeline’s throughput back to roughly 3.5 million barrels per day, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News on Monday. The line’s maximum capacity is 7 million bpd, indicating that the current flow is about half of its peak.

Meanwhile, U.S. and Iranian officials spoke with mediators on Monday as they attempt anew to negotiate a deal to end the seven‑month conflict. Iran offered last week to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States accepts the terms of the failed June memorandum of understanding, but President Donald Trump rejected Tehran’s proposal on Saturday as exports through the waterway recover.

Oil flows through Hormuz have averaged 13.2 million barrels per day over the past week, according to Kpler data—about 77 % of the 17 million bpd that moved through the strait before the U.S.–Iran war. The U.S. military continues to protect tankers from Gulf allies and maintains a blockade on Iranian exports.