**Exploring the New Features in Apple's Messages App with iOS 15**

One of the most exciting features of Apple's upcoming iOS 15 is its revamped messages app. In this article, we'll take a closer look at some of the new features that are set to change the way you communicate with your friends and family.

**Shared Links and Content**

One of the standout features of the new messages app is its ability to share links and content directly from conversations. When someone sends you a link or a piece of content, it will automatically appear in a dedicated section in the messages app. This means that you can easily view and respond to shared content without having to leave the conversation. For example, if Steven sends you an episode of Mythic Quest: The Bear, you'll be able to jump into the TV app and watch it directly from within the conversation.

To access this feature, simply go to your conversation with someone and tap on the "Shared" tab. This will bring up a list of links and content that have been shared with you by others. From here, you can browse through the options and click on something that catches your eye. If you find something you want to watch or read, just tap on it to launch the relevant app.

This feature works seamlessly across multiple apps, including TV, News, Podcasts, Music, Photos, Safari, and more. So whether someone shares a link with you in the Messages app, you can easily access it without having to navigate through different apps. It's a great way to discover new content and stay up-to-date on your favorite topics.

**Threaded Messages**

Another exciting feature of the new messages app is its threaded messaging system. This allows you to respond to individual conversations within each thread, making it easier to keep track of who's saying what. When someone sends you a message, it will automatically be inserted into a conversation with previous messages. You can then reply directly from within that conversation.

This feature is especially useful when communicating with friends or family members. It helps to keep the conversation organized and makes it easy to follow along. Plus, it adds a touch of personality to your conversations by allowing you to respond in different ways. Whether you're sending a funny GIF or a heartfelt message, threaded messaging ensures that everyone can see what's being said.

**Inclusive Emoji Options**

One of the most significant updates to the Messages app is its new inclusive emoji options. Apple has added more diverse and representative emojis to its lineup, including glasses options, eye color choices, hearing aids, oxygen tubes, and soft helmet options. These additions aim to make the messaging experience more accessible and inclusive for everyone.

For example, if you're someone who wears a cochlear implant or has another type of hearing aid, you can now represent yourself with one of the new emoji options. This is just one of many ways that Apple is working to be more inclusive in its products. Whether it's new emoji choices or features like threaded messaging, Apple is committed to making communication easier and more enjoyable for everyone.

**Stickers and Clothing Options**

Another fun feature of the new Messages app is its expanded sticker collection. With over 40 different clothing options available, you can now customize your stickers with unique styles and personalities. This adds a whole new level of creativity to your conversations and makes it easy to express yourself in different ways.

When sending a message, you'll have access to these new stickers right at your fingertips. Simply select the sticker you want to use, choose from one of 40 different clothing options, and send it off with your message. It's a great way to add some personality to your conversations and make them more fun and engaging.

**Apple's Emphasis on Inclusivity**

Throughout iOS 15, Apple has placed a strong emphasis on inclusivity and diversity. From the new emoji options to the expanded sticker collection, every feature is designed to make communication easier and more enjoyable for everyone. Whether you're someone who wears glasses or hearing aids, or simply wants to express yourself in different ways, these features are here to help.

In our next article, we'll take a closer look at some of the other exciting new features coming to iOS 15. Stay tuned!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwelcome everyone to apple insider it is andrew here you can find me on twitter at andrew underscore osu and please bear with me a little bit today i'm feeling a tad under the weather and i've got this old raspy voice going on so we're trying to power through because i've got stuff to talk to you about today we are going to be talking about messages as part of ios 15. and i have to tell you there are a lot of great enhancements here that i am so excited to talk to you about so let's go ahead and dive in and take a look at all the new features coming to the messages app as part of ios 15 and ipad os 15. when you jump into the messages app you can see it looks pretty much the same with just some minor tweaks including that camera icon in the top right hand corner uh then we have different things in the actual conversation itself that look a little bit different for instance photos are the big one for me when photos come in they'll be stacked together in this nice little collage so there's two they're just kind of spread out if there's more than that they'll be grouped together and you'll see the number of photos written above it on the right hand side there's a quick little download icon to add them straight to your photos library and you can tap on either of the photos or any of the photos to view them full screen you can also get back and view them in like a collage view if you prefer and any photos that you know you're interested in you're able to go ahead and give a tap back to so you can actually hold on to them like you normally would and send that tap back or when you are viewing them in that full screen view there's a little tray down there at the bottom where you can respond that image directly share that image yourself or go ahead and tap the tap back button or they save the photo library there's also the annotate icon in the top right hand corner as well so they've done a lot with making photos look a lot better here inside of the messages app i also want to mention that you can pin content as well in the messages app so hear my conversation with uh fully if there is something that i want to come back to later in the future um maybe this article or something like that that he has sent over a video whatever it may be i can go ahead and hold on that and i can tap on pin so it doesn't work with photos but it works to anything else that someone shared that i want to get back to and when i do pin that content if i go to the name at the top and i pull up that card there's actually a pinned section where i can see any pin content that i've pinned sorry for using the word pin so many times um but yeah there's a whole pinned section of anything that i find necessary that i want to come back to a later time conversation can be sprawling so there's anything that you just really want to make sure you get back to and you want to remember again just pin it and it's going to be saved for you for later and you don't have to scroll through the whole conversation looking at photos there's a big difference in the little kind of imessage app for attaching photos to your messages so we look at our old iphone with the old ios 14 way of doing things they're kind of in a grid and they swipe left to right and you had to tap all photos to bring that up but if we look at the new one it's a little bit more streamlined it looks a little bit better you can see the images they go all the way to the edges they're always those grounded edges of the iphone it blends in much more it looks like it takes more advantage of the full space and you can swipe up and down and actually scroll through that list without having to make into the full screen view so it's a little bit easier than the left and right scrolling up before and it takes up more space takes more advantage of the space that it has and then you can also swipe the whole thing up if you'd like to to bring it into full screen where you're already in all photos you don't have to tap all photos you're just in all photos but you can go ahead and search by albums as well i mean whether you're in full screen mode or the shorter mode you can tap on that little bar to go ahead and search for anything so if it's a person you can search for a person that you have in your photo library you could search for uh you know objects like a cat you could search for a cat it'll bring up all your photos of cats that you have in your library sunsets or locations you know something that you took in iceland anything like that those photos would populate there so it's very easy to search through your photos from here inside of the messages app two main things to talk about before we wrap this video up first up is going to be shared content we've talked a lot about the photos here but shared content in general is getting a massive overhaul with tie-ins to many other apps so the way this works is somebody shares something with you say it's a recipe you can get that recipe inside of the messages app and then when you go into safari on your home page like that home starter tab kind of place there'll be an option that'll have your shared links and you can just go ahead and tap it there and you can see who sent it to you and all that great information but it works with a bunch of other apps as well so steven here steven sent me a great few links so i go to my conversation that i was having with steven you can see he sent me um an episode of mythic quest the casino i love the show so much so if i go over then into the tv app i actually have a new category new section right there on my watch now tab of shared content shared episodes that somebody shared with me so i can jump in and watch that so it pre-populates this i'm looking for something to watch i know steven shared that with me maybe that's what i want to watch right now and i can go ahead and do that so it works similar with any of the other links that he sent me he sent me a news article so if i just jump into the news app i don't have to be thinking about this i just jump in the news app like i normally would any other time and as i scroll down the home page i see a shared with you section it shared with you i can see what people have sent me and i can go ahead and read that article and then when i'm done i can actually just tap on steven's name and i can respond back to him letting him know that i read this it'll include it in the little thread it'll like connect it uh with the threaded messages that we have now so i can respond to him directly there i mean it works with many other apps including podcasts as well i think music it works with photos it works with apple i said apple music apple tv app safari music photos yeah it works with a bunch of different ones i think like six or so in total but just throughout the os so anytime someone shares something with you you'll be able to find it whether it's in podcast whether it is in photos safari news tv all of that just anything shared will populate in those apps automatically i love this feature and i cannot wait for more people to start playing with this when ios 15 actually launches and our last new feature to check out is memoji apple really beefed up their memoji game this year and i feel like emoji are polarizing because people some people love it some people hate it so if you hate it that's why it's at the end you don't have to watch this part of the video but if you do care about memoji let's dive in because apple really did add a wealth of new changes when you are creating your own emoji this year apple says they are adding clothing there are 40 different clothing options though right now in the first beta it didn't seem like this was an option i scrolled through a bunch i didn't see anything about clothing i saw you know masks and earrings and headwear and glasses and all that kind of stuff but i did not see anything about clothing yet but when you do have clothing there are 40 different styles that you can choose from to really personalize your memoji character and then when you share that with stickers you can have some cool clothing trap yourself represent yourself as well so clothing along with everything else are now coming to those emoji characters so we have new emoji stickers to talk about there are new glasses options a ton of new glasses options in there we have new eye color choices so before you choose one eye color now you can actually set two different eye colors for the people that that impact so that is an inclusive thing that apple's added here with the latest version of emoji similarly to be more inclusive apple is adding new options for hearing aids so if you're someone who wears a hearing aid or has a cochlear implant you can now represent yourself more easily with memoji those are options down here so you have like the air pods but now you also have options for like cochlear implants as well there's also options there's also oxygen tubes and soft helmet choices for anyone who has those as well so just apple really trying to be inclusive with their emoji choices apple is also adding additional colors you can choose multiple colors for things like your headwear so i've almost done a ton with emoji for ios 15. but that covers it that is what we're getting inside the messages app there's a lot to love here i'm so excited for all of you to try it out for yourself let me know if you are excited about the new changes coming to messages let me know on twitter at andrew underscore osu and stay tuned because i get a lot more ios 15 and all the other updates coming down the pike in video form very very soon and thank you again for being here i just love you all so very much youwelcome everyone to apple insider it is andrew here you can find me on twitter at andrew underscore osu and please bear with me a little bit today i'm feeling a tad under the weather and i've got this old raspy voice going on so we're trying to power through because i've got stuff to talk to you about today we are going to be talking about messages as part of ios 15. and i have to tell you there are a lot of great enhancements here that i am so excited to talk to you about so let's go ahead and dive in and take a look at all the new features coming to the messages app as part of ios 15 and ipad os 15. when you jump into the messages app you can see it looks pretty much the same with just some minor tweaks including that camera icon in the top right hand corner uh then we have different things in the actual conversation itself that look a little bit different for instance photos are the big one for me when photos come in they'll be stacked together in this nice little collage so there's two they're just kind of spread out if there's more than that they'll be grouped together and you'll see the number of photos written above it on the right hand side there's a quick little download icon to add them straight to your photos library and you can tap on either of the photos or any of the photos to view them full screen you can also get back and view them in like a collage view if you prefer and any photos that you know you're interested in you're able to go ahead and give a tap back to so you can actually hold on to them like you normally would and send that tap back or when you are viewing them in that full screen view there's a little tray down there at the bottom where you can respond that image directly share that image yourself or go ahead and tap the tap back button or they save the photo library there's also the annotate icon in the top right hand corner as well so they've done a lot with making photos look a lot better here inside of the messages app i also want to mention that you can pin content as well in the messages app so hear my conversation with uh fully if there is something that i want to come back to later in the future um maybe this article or something like that that he has sent over a video whatever it may be i can go ahead and hold on that and i can tap on pin so it doesn't work with photos but it works to anything else that someone shared that i want to get back to and when i do pin that content if i go to the name at the top and i pull up that card there's actually a pinned section where i can see any pin content that i've pinned sorry for using the word pin so many times um but yeah there's a whole pinned section of anything that i find necessary that i want to come back to a later time conversation can be sprawling so there's anything that you just really want to make sure you get back to and you want to remember again just pin it and it's going to be saved for you for later and you don't have to scroll through the whole conversation looking at photos there's a big difference in the little kind of imessage app for attaching photos to your messages so we look at our old iphone with the old ios 14 way of doing things they're kind of in a grid and they swipe left to right and you had to tap all photos to bring that up but if we look at the new one it's a little bit more streamlined it looks a little bit better you can see the images they go all the way to the edges they're always those grounded edges of the iphone it blends in much more it looks like it takes more advantage of the full space and you can swipe up and down and actually scroll through that list without having to make into the full screen view so it's a little bit easier than the left and right scrolling up before and it takes up more space takes more advantage of the space that it has and then you can also swipe the whole thing up if you'd like to to bring it into full screen where you're already in all photos you don't have to tap all photos you're just in all photos but you can go ahead and search by albums as well i mean whether you're in full screen mode or the shorter mode you can tap on that little bar to go ahead and search for anything so if it's a person you can search for a person that you have in your photo library you could search for uh you know objects like a cat you could search for a cat it'll bring up all your photos of cats that you have in your library sunsets or locations you know something that you took in iceland anything like that those photos would populate there so it's very easy to search through your photos from here inside of the messages app two main things to talk about before we wrap this video up first up is going to be shared content we've talked a lot about the photos here but shared content in general is getting a massive overhaul with tie-ins to many other apps so the way this works is somebody shares something with you say it's a recipe you can get that recipe inside of the messages app and then when you go into safari on your home page like that home starter tab kind of place there'll be an option that'll have your shared links and you can just go ahead and tap it there and you can see who sent it to you and all that great information but it works with a bunch of other apps as well so steven here steven sent me a great few links so i go to my conversation that i was having with steven you can see he sent me um an episode of mythic quest the casino i love the show so much so if i go over then into the tv app i actually have a new category new section right there on my watch now tab of shared content shared episodes that somebody shared with me so i can jump in and watch that so it pre-populates this i'm looking for something to watch i know steven shared that with me maybe that's what i want to watch right now and i can go ahead and do that so it works similar with any of the other links that he sent me he sent me a news article so if i just jump into the news app i don't have to be thinking about this i just jump in the news app like i normally would any other time and as i scroll down the home page i see a shared with you section it shared with you i can see what people have sent me and i can go ahead and read that article and then when i'm done i can actually just tap on steven's name and i can respond back to him letting him know that i read this it'll include it in the little thread it'll like connect it uh with the threaded messages that we have now so i can respond to him directly there i mean it works with many other apps including podcasts as well i think music it works with photos it works with apple i said apple music apple tv app safari music photos yeah it works with a bunch of different ones i think like six or so in total but just throughout the os so anytime someone shares something with you you'll be able to find it whether it's in podcast whether it is in photos safari news tv all of that just anything shared will populate in those apps automatically i love this feature and i cannot wait for more people to start playing with this when ios 15 actually launches and our last new feature to check out is memoji apple really beefed up their memoji game this year and i feel like emoji are polarizing because people some people love it some people hate it so if you hate it that's why it's at the end you don't have to watch this part of the video but if you do care about memoji let's dive in because apple really did add a wealth of new changes when you are creating your own emoji this year apple says they are adding clothing there are 40 different clothing options though right now in the first beta it didn't seem like this was an option i scrolled through a bunch i didn't see anything about clothing i saw you know masks and earrings and headwear and glasses and all that kind of stuff but i did not see anything about clothing yet but when you do have clothing there are 40 different styles that you can choose from to really personalize your memoji character and then when you share that with stickers you can have some cool clothing trap yourself represent yourself as well so clothing along with everything else are now coming to those emoji characters so we have new emoji stickers to talk about there are new glasses options a ton of new glasses options in there we have new eye color choices so before you choose one eye color now you can actually set two different eye colors for the people that that impact so that is an inclusive thing that apple's added here with the latest version of emoji similarly to be more inclusive apple is adding new options for hearing aids so if you're someone who wears a hearing aid or has a cochlear implant you can now represent yourself more easily with memoji those are options down here so you have like the air pods but now you also have options for like cochlear implants as well there's also options there's also oxygen tubes and soft helmet choices for anyone who has those as well so just apple really trying to be inclusive with their emoji choices apple is also adding additional colors you can choose multiple colors for things like your headwear so i've almost done a ton with emoji for ios 15. but that covers it that is what we're getting inside the messages app there's a lot to love here i'm so excited for all of you to try it out for yourself let me know if you are excited about the new changes coming to messages let me know on twitter at andrew underscore osu and stay tuned because i get a lot more ios 15 and all the other updates coming down the pike in video form very very soon and thank you again for being here i just love you all so very much you\n"