Technologies

Apple Messages in iOS 17 Will Turn Your Photos Into Stickers

At WWDC, Apple unveiled a handful of iOS 17 updates to its Messages app, including Live Stickers.

Apple’s Messages is about to get an upgrade. With iOS 17, you’ll be able to turn pictures into stickers, transcribe voice memos, keep your friends and family notified on your way home and more.

News about the Messages update came Monday at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, held at its Apple Park headquarters in Cupertino, California. Apple traditionally uses the annual event to unveil new devices, such as its mixed reality headset Apple Vision Pro, and give developers a preview of upcoming additions to its desktop and mobile software.

Live Stickers coming to iOS 17

The update to Messages will be part of iOS 17 and include new sticker experiences, where people can take their photos and turn them into stickers they use in text conversations, alongside standard emojis, which can also be used as stickers. People can customize their stickers with effects, like shiny, puffy, comic and outline, and keep them in a new drawer in the keyboard for streamlined access, Apple said in a press release. Stickers will be available systemwide, including in third-party apps. Apple said iOS 17 will be shipped later this fall. Here’s which iPhones will be able to run the update.

To make a photo into a sticker, touch and hold an object in a photo. Then you can style your object with various effects, outline it or create animated Live Stickers with Live Photos. To use the sticker in Messages, add them in the bubble from the Tapback menu.

Watch this: Apple Reveals iOS 17

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Search in Messages, Check In and more

Apple also debuted a refined search feature for what it called a more «powerful and precise» Messages search experience. People can apply additional filters to their Messages search to more quickly find the exact conversation they were looking for. Plus, when you’ve received lots of texts in a group chat, you can now use the catch-up arrow to locate where the conversation left off last.

iOS 17 Messages will also transcribe voice memos you receive, if you don’t have the time to listen to them. Apple additionally announced a new location sharing feature that lets you keep track of your friends by viewing their location in your text conversation.

Apple’s Check In feature through iOS 17.

Screenshot by CNET

Another location sharing feature Apple debuted is Check In. If you want to keep a friend or family member updated on your journey home, for example, you can use Check In, which notifies the person of your whereabouts and lets them know if you’re having trouble getting home. «If they are not making progress toward their destination, useful information will be temporarily shared with the selected contact, such as the device’s location, battery level, and cell service status,» Apple said in the press release. Check In will be end-to-end encrypted, so only you and the person you’re sharing this information with is privy to your location.

Developers can try out iOS 17 today, and everyone can try out the public beta in a month.

Apple kicked off WWDC with an announcement on its thin 15-inch MacBook Air and offered details on its latest desktop software, MacOS 14 Sonoma.

For more, Apple reveals its brainiest Mac chip yet and upgrades its Mac Pro to M2 Ultra Silicon. With the iOS 17 update, you can finally type what you ducking mean.

Technologies

Tesla Has a New Range of Affordable Electric Cars: How Much They Cost

The new, stripped-back versions of the Model Y and Model 3 have a more affordable starting price.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Strands Hints, Answers and Help for Oct. 22 #598

Here are hints and answers for the NYT Strands puzzle for Oct. 22, No. 598.

Looking for the most recent Strands answer? Click here for our daily Strands hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s NYT Strands puzzle is a fun one — I definitely have at least two of these in my house. Some of the answers are a bit tough to unscramble, so if you need hints and answers, read on.

I go into depth about the rules for Strands in this story.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections and Mini Crossword answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: NYT Connections Turns 1: These Are the 5 Toughest Puzzles So Far

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s Strands theme is: Catch all.

If that doesn’t help you, here’s a clue: A mess of items.

Clue words to unlock in-game hints

Your goal is to find hidden words that fit the puzzle’s theme. If you’re stuck, find any words you can. Every time you find three words of four letters or more, Strands will reveal one of the theme words. These are the words I used to get those hints but any words of four or more letters that you find will work:

BATE, LICE, SLUM, CAPE, HOLE, CARE, BARE, THEN, SLAM, SAMBA, BACK

Answers for today’s Strands puzzle

These are the answers that tie into the theme. The goal of the puzzle is to find them all, including the spangram, a theme word that reaches from one side of the puzzle to the other. When you have all of them (I originally thought there were always eight but learned that the number can vary), every letter on the board will be used. Here are the nonspangram answers:

TAPE, COIN, PENCIL, BATTERY, SHOELACE, THUMBTACK

Today’s Strands spangram

Today’s Strands spangram is JUNKDRAWER. To find it, look for the J that’s five letters down on the far-left row, and wind down, over and then up.

Quick tips for Strands

#1: To get more clue words, see if you can tweak the words you’ve already found, by adding an «S» or other variants. And if you find a word like WILL, see if other letters are close enough to help you make SILL, or BILL.

#2: Once you get one theme word, look at the puzzle to see if you can spot other related words.

#3: If you’ve been given the letters for a theme word, but can’t figure it out, guess three more clue words, and the puzzle will light up each letter in order, revealing the word.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Oct. 22, #1586

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Oct. 22, No. 1,586.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle puzzle features some letters I don’t often guess, but it’s not terribly difficult. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.

Today’s Wordle hints

Before we show you today’s Wordle answer, we’ll give you some hints. If you don’t want a spoiler, look away now.

Wordle hint No. 1: Repeats

Today’s Wordle answer has one repeated letter.

Wordle hint No. 2: Vowels

Today’s Wordle answer has one vowel.

Wordle hint No. 3: First letter

Today’s Wordle answer begins with S.

Wordle hint No. 4: Last letter

Today’s Wordle answer ends with T.

Wordle hint No. 5: Meaning

Today’s Wordle answer can refer to an action displaying spectacular skill and daring.

TODAY’S WORDLE ANSWER

Today’s Wordle answer is STUNT.

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle answer, Oct. 21, No. 1,585 was DETOX.

Recent Wordle answers

Oct. 17, No. 1,581: GROSS
Oct. 18, No. 1,582: HAVEN
Oct. 19, No. 1,583: IDEAL
Oct. 20, No. 1,584: LIMBO

Quick tips for Wordle

#1: Check our list ranking the popularity of all the letters in the alphabet and choose your starter words accordingly. (TRAIN, STERN and AUDIO are good.)

#2: Don’t forget that letters can be used more than once.

#3: Many words are similar. You don’t want to use up multiple guesses that don’t advance your cause. So if the puzzle is STA_E, don’t guess STARE, STATE and STALE. Guess something that uses that R, T and L, like TWIRL.