Meta is behind a number of product categories and services, but at Meta Connect 2024, the company’s annual developer’s conference, don’t expect to hear news specifically pertaining to apps like Facebook or Instagram. Instead, Meta says Connect is about the “technologies of the future,” which means AR, VR, and AI. (All the acronyms.) Here’s what we expect to see.

A new Meta Quest

The Meta Quest 3 is the company’s current VR headset, and while certainly not as expensive as Apple’s Vision Pro, it still costs $499 minimum.

According to the rumor mill, Meta is working on a less expensive version of the Quest 3, perhaps called the Meta Quest 3S. This headset would cut some corners in specs and features to bring the price down, but hey, the price would be down. That could be an enticing offer for any interested in getting into VR, but who doesn’t want to drop half a grand to do so. For the dozens out there looking for a spec bump in their Quest headsets, that might not be coming anytime soon: The Information says Meta canceled its pricier Meta Quest Pro project, which isn’t surprising: Apple’s Vision Pro has not sold well, despite sporting some impressive tech, and few of us have any interest in the Metaverse, especially for work. There seems to be a market for affordable headsets, but not for $1,000+ prosumer models.

New AR glasses

If a full headset isn’t your thing, how about smart glasses? Rumor has it Meta is working on a sequel to its Meta Ray Ban glasses, perhaps named Meta Orion, which may add mixed reality abilities for the first time, like a heads-up display in the right lens. The current Meta Ray Bans come with smart features, like Meta AI, a camera, a speaker, and the ability to place video calls. Our sister site PCMag found the glasses stylish, with clear sound quality and responsive controls, but the bass was lackluster and it was difficult to precisely frame photos. Adding AR to this type of product might introduce mixed reality to a larger customer base: People might not want to walk around with full headsets on, but glasses are subtle enough to bring anywhere—especially since they look nothing like Google Glass.

Meta AI

Expect a good deal of AI talk at this year’s Connect. Last month, Meta rolled out AI to its Quest headsets for the first time, so I wouldn’t be surprised to hear about new features and changes for Quest specifically. I’m sure the company will also talk more about Meta AI on its core platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger: While I doubt it’ll let you disable its AI, Meta may advertise new services users can try out on these apps, as the company competes with other AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini. Meta AI can now connect to the internet, generate GIFs, and produce images as you type, so it’s definitely catching up to the big players. Meta has the advantage of an installed user base to push these new features on, offering competition for something like ChatGPT.

An open system

Don’t be taken off guard if Mark Zuckerberg starts talking about Meta’s place as a leader in this mixed reality. The company has been making moves to be the “Android” of the mixed reality industry, by opening up the Meta Horizon OS and Quest ecosystem to third parties. Now, other companies can make their own headsets using Meta’s platforms, just as other manufacturers build smartphones around Android, or other companies build computers around Windows.

How to watch Meta Connect 2024

Meta Connect will kick off on Sept. 25 at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET). While there will be an in-person keynote for developers and member of the media, anyone can livestream it from home. You can tune in from Meta’s YouTube page, or from the official Meta Connect website.

When most people talk credit scores, they’re talking about your general FICO score—the one lenders are most likely to use. FICO is tight-lipped about the formulas they use to calculate our scores, but we know the general categories they track and how important they are to that calculation. Here are those categories, and what you need to know about them.

How exactly is your credit score calculated?

Let’s take a look at the math of how your credit score is determined, so you can see exactly why it goes up and down.

Payment history is 35% of your score

Your payment history makes up 35% of your score and it’s pretty much what it sounds like: your history of paying debt in full and on time. The way FICO sees it, this history is a good indicator of how well you handle debt in general. But what exactly goes into payment history? According to FICO, payment history is based on these main factors:

• Payment information on credit cards, retail accounts, installment loans, mortgages and other types of accounts

• How overdue delinquent payments are today or may have become in the past

• The amount of money still owed on delinquent accounts or collection items

• The number of past-due items on a credit report

• Bankruptcy public records

• The amount of time that’s passed since delinquencies, bankruptcy public records or collection items were introduced

• The number of accounts that are being paid as agreed

FICO determines all of this by analyzing your credit report (which is why your report is far more important than your score). It’s not easy to know when a late payment will pop up and affect your score, as there are no set rules for when creditors have to report late payments. Some might not report your missed payment for 60 days, while others will report it after 30. You can always check your credit report to ensure there are no payments outstanding, but generally, if you have a history of on-time payments, you should be in the clear.

Credit utilization is 30% of your score

Credit utilization is the amount of credit you have available to you that you’re actually using. This percentage—available credit to used credit—is called your credit utilization ratio. For example, a $1,000 purchase on a credit line of $10,000 gives you a credit utilization ratio of 10%. The lower your utilization, the better your score (except for 0% because it doesn’t give lenders a credit history to scrutinize) and experts say you should not have a ratio higher than 30%.

Because your credit limit is part of the credit utilization equation, closing an old credit card can sometimes work against your FICO score. That said, people still choose to close old cards and get dinged on their score rather than pay an annual fee for a card they don’t even use. However, it’s best to avoid canceling credit cards just before applying for a mortgage or any other line of credit.

Some credit experts suggest opening a bunch of cards to boost your score. Even though it sounds counterintuitive and risky (the temptation to spend!), raising your overall credit limit indeed boosts your FICO score because of credit utilization. Just remember that good financial habits are more important than a credit score.

Some people will tell you it’s important to revolve a balance to build credit, but experts agree: That’s a myth. The most important thing is paying your credit card on time and in full each month. The only thing you’re doing by carrying a balance is paying interest—and with the average national interest rate at around 27%, that can add up quickly.

Length of credit history is 15% of your score

The length of your credit history doesn’t make up a huge portion of your score, but it’s still important. According to CreditCards.com, this is the “length of time each account has been open and the length of time since the account’s most recent action.” Here are three main factors that affect your length of history:

• How long your accounts have been open overall

• How long certain types of accounts have been open

• How long it’s been since you’ve actually used those accounts

This factor makes it impossible to have a perfect credit score if you’re new to credit, as you need credit on your report for at least six months to begin generating a history. FICO wants to see a long history of credit usage so they can gauge your long-term financial habits.

New credit and credit mix are 10% each

New credit and credit mix are two different factors. With new credit, FICO is looking at a few different things:

• How many new accounts you’ve opened in the past six to 12 months: “If you have been managing credit for a short time, don’t open a lot of new accounts too rapidly. New accounts will lower your average account age, which will have a larger effect on your FICO scores if you don’t have a lot of other credit information. Even if you have used credit for a long time, opening a new account can still lower your FICO scores,” says FICO.

• Recent inquiries: An inquiry is when a lender pulls your report to check it. It doesn’t have a huge impact on your score, though, and the activity will usually drop off of your report after two years. Plus, FICO only looks at inquiries from the past year.

• How long it’s been since you opened a new account: According to FICO, your score “may consider the time that has passed since you opened a new credit account, for specific types of accounts.”

• How well you’ve bounced back from past payment problems: “Late payment behavior in the past can be overcome; re-establishing credit and making payments on time will raise a FICO score over time.”

Credit mix is kind of vague, but essentially it means that a history of different kinds of debt is good for your score. FICO says that borrowers with a good mix of credit—cards, car loans, mortgages, student loans—are usually less of a risk to lenders. FICO says:

The credit mix usually won’t be a key factor in determining your FICO scores—but it will be more important if your credit report does not have a lot of other information on which to base a score.

While there are other credit scores out there, most lenders rely on FICO, and even if they don’t, the scoring models will use similar factors. Keeping tabs on your FICO score should give you a good gauge on your credit worthiness in general.

Keep in mind that your FICO score is calculated only from the information in your credit report. However, lenders may look at many things when making a credit decision, such as your income, how long you have worked at your current job, and the kind of credit you are requesting. For more, check out these tips for boosting your credit score.

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for September 20, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is medium difficult; I got it in four. Beware, there are spoilers below for September 20, Wordle #1,189! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

There are three common letters from our mnemonic today. One is pretty common, one is less common.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

Where this exists, there’s fire.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

There are no repeated letters today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There are two vowels.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with S. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with E. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is SMOKE.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE and TOUCH, followed by SLOPE, which was a possible solution and also helped eliminate consonants found in other answers. This left SMOKE as the best solution.

Wordle 1,189 4/6

⬛⬛⬛🟨🟩
⬛🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛🟩⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was easier. The hint was “as a noun, another word for media” and the answer contained four common letters and one fairly common letter.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was PRESS.

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

• Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

• Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

• CRANE

• TRACE

• SLANT

• CRATE

• CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

• SALET

• REAST

• TRACE

• CRATE

• SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

You can get a stackable 3-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership on sale for $36.49 (reg. $50). Game Pass Ultimate gives members access to over 500 games for consoles, PC, phones, and tablets and lets users access games on their release day, including titles from major publishers. This membership allows gamers to access online play for compatible titles, and it gives users access to a free EA Play Membership. EA Play members get premium discounts, rewards, and the ability to download games directly to their consoles or PCs. These codes are stackable and up to five can be applied to one account for a 15-month membership.

You can get a 3-month Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership on sale right now for $36.49, though prices can change at any time.

WASHINGTON, Sept. 19, 2024 – U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Tom Vilsack announced today that USDA is awarding more than $35 million in grants to 15 independent meat processors in 12 states to increase processing capacity, spur competition to expand market opportunities for U.S. farmers and create jobs in rural areas.

If you’re looking for the Wordle answer for September 19, 2024 read on. We’ll share some clues, tips, and strategies, and finally the solution. Today’s puzzle is easier; I got it in three. Beware, there are spoilers below for September 19, Wordle #1,188! Keep scrolling if you want some hints (and then the answer) to today’s Wordle game.

How to play Wordle

Wordle lives here on the New York Times website. A new puzzle goes live every day at midnight, your local time.

Start by guessing a five-letter word. The letters of the word will turn green if they’re correct, yellow if you have the right letter in the wrong place, or gray if the letter isn’t in the day’s secret word at all. For more, check out our guide to playing Wordle here, and my strategy guide here for more advanced tips. (We also have more information at the bottom of this post, after the hints and answers.)

Ready for the hints? Let’s go!

Does today’s Wordle have any unusual letters?

We’ll define common letters as those that appear in the old typesetters’ phrase ETAOIN SHRDLU. (Memorize this! Pronounce it “Edwin Shirdloo,” like a name, and pretend he’s a friend of yours.)

There are four common letters from our mnemonic today! The fifth is pretty common.

Can you give me a hint for today’s Wordle?

As a noun, another word for media.

Does today’s Wordle have any double or repeated letters?

There is one repeated letter today. 

How many vowels are in today’s Wordle?

There is one vowel.

What letter does today’s Wordle start with?

Today’s word starts with P. 

What letter does today’s Wordle end with?

Today’s word ends with S. 

What is the solution to today’s Wordle?

Ready? Today’s word is PRESS.

How I solved today’s Wordle

I started with RAISE and TOUCH—there are a lot of words with R, S, and E, but only a couple that have S as the fourth letter. I guessed PRESS, which was the correct solution.

Wordle 1,188 3/6

🟨⬛⬛🟩🟨
⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Yesterday’s Wordle answer

Yesterday’s Wordle was harder. The hint was “completely” and the answer contained three common letters, one somewhat common letter, and one uncommon letter.

The answer to yesterday’s Wordle was FULLY.

A primer on Wordle basics

The idea of Wordle is to guess the day’s secret word. When you first open the Wordle game, you’ll see an empty grid of letters. It’s up to you to make the first move: type in any five-letter word. 

Now, you can use the colors that are revealed to get clues about the word: Green means you correctly guessed a letter, and it’s in the correct position. (For example, if you guess PARTY, and the word is actually PURSE, the P and R will be green.)

• Yellow means the letter is somewhere in the word, but not in the position you guessed it. (For example, if you guessed PARTY, but the word is actually ROAST, the R, A and T will all be yellow.)

• Gray means the letter is not in the solution word at all. (If you guessed PARTY and everything is gray, then the solution cannot be PURSE or ROAST.)

With all that in mind, guess another word, and then another, trying to land on the correct word before you run out of chances. You get six guesses, and then it’s game over.

The best starter words for Wordle

What should you play for that first guess? The best starters tend to contain common letters, to increase the chances of getting yellow and green squares to guide your guessing. (And if you get all grays when guessing common letters, that’s still excellent information to help you rule out possibilities.) There isn’t a single “best” starting word, but the New York Times’s Wordle analysis bot has suggested starting with one of these:

• CRANE

• TRACE

• SLANT

• CRATE

• CARTE

Meanwhile, an MIT analysis found that you’ll eliminate the most possibilities in the first round by starting with one of these:

• SALET

• REAST

• TRACE

• CRATE

• SLATE

Other good picks might be ARISE or ROUND. Words like ADIEU and AUDIO get more vowels in play, but you could argue that it’s better to start with an emphasis on consonants, using a starter like RENTS or CLAMP. Choose your strategy, and see how it plays out.

How to win at Wordle

We have a few guides to Wordle strategy, which you might like to read over if you’re a serious student of the game. This one covers how to use consonants to your advantage, while this one focuses on a strategy that uses the most common letters. In this advanced guide, we detail a three-pronged approach for fishing for hints while maximizing your chances of winning quickly.

The biggest thing that separates Wordle winners from Wordle losers is that winners use their guesses to gather information about what letters are in the word. If you know that the word must end in -OUND, don’t waste four guesses on MOUND, ROUND, SOUND, and HOUND; combine those consonants and guess MARSH. If the H lights up in yellow, you know the solution.

One more note on strategy: the original Wordle used a list of about 2,300 solution words, but after the game was bought by the NYT, the game now has an editor who hand-picks the solutions. Sometimes they are slightly tricky words that wouldn’t have made the original list, and sometimes they are topical. For example, FEAST was the solution one Thanksgiving. So keep in mind that there may be a theme.

Wordle alternatives

If you can’t get enough of five-letter guessing games and their kin, the best Wordle alternatives, ranked by difficulty, include:

• Wheeldle, which lets you play one puzzle after another

• Dordle and Quordle, which ask you to play two (Dordle) or four (Quordle) puzzles at the same time, with the same guesses. There is also Octordle, with eight puzzles, and Sedecordle, with 16.

• Waffle, which shows you several five-letter words, scrambled in a grid; you play by swapping the letters around until you solve.

• Absurdle, which changes the solution after each guess, but needs to stay consistent with its previous feedback. You have to strategically back it into a corner until there is only one possible word left; then you guess it, and win.

• Squabble, in which you play Wordle against other people with a timer running. You take damage if you spend too much time between guesses; winner is the last one standing.

• Antiwordle, in which you are trying not to guess the day’s solution. You’re required to reuse any letters that you (oops) guessed correctly, so the longer it takes you, the better you are at the game.

Travelers rejoice—the State Department has announced that online passport renewal is now available to all. I renewed my passport on the first day the system was open to the general public, and the process went smoothly—although I had some trouble taking my own photos at first. (I figured it out, and I’ll give you some tips below.)

If this sounds like it might not be entirely new, that’s because online passport renewal was originally announced in 2021, paused in 2023, and reopened in “beta” version earlier this summer. Now, the State Department says that passports are being processed in one-third the time that they took at this time last year, and are well under the six to eight weeks that renewals are typically expected to take.

How to renew your U.S. passport online

First, head to Travel.State.Gov/renewonline. There, you’ll see a list of steps: 

1. Confirm you meet the requirements

2. Create your account 

3. Start your application

4. Enter your most recent passport info

5. Enter travel plans

6. Upload digital photo

7. Sign and pay

8. Enroll in email updates

I recommend keeping that page open while you go through the process, since at first you’ll need to bounce between a few different websites. You’ll need to create an account at login.gov, then go back to travel.state.gov to begin renewing your passport. At the end of the process, it will send you to pay.gov to make a credit or debit card payment.

Who is eligible to renew their passport online? 

There’s a long list of requirements, so make sure to read through them all. Among the important ones: 

• You are aged 25 or older.

• Your passport either expires in the next year, or has not been expired for more than 5 years. (Another way of putting it: your old passport was issued between 9 and 15 years ago.)

• You are not changing your name, gender, date of birth, or place of birth.

• You have your old passport in front of you.

I also noticed, when renewing mine, that I was not able to add a passport card to my order, since I didn’t have a passport card to start with. I only had a book, so I was only able to renew the book.

How long does it take to renew your passport online? 

It took me about 30 minutes to renew my passport, including about 10 to 15 minutes to take a photo and make sure it was cropped and adjusted correctly.

The processing time is officially the same as for a renewal by mail, six to eight weeks. (That said, the State Department says it’s processing them a lot quicker these days.) You can’t use the expedited service online.

How much does it cost to renew your passport online? 

The fee is $130 for a regular or large passport book. I didn’t have a passport card to renew, but the fee for a passport card is $30 according to the State Department. (You can see the full fee schedule here.)

Can you apply for a passport for the first time online? 

Nope, this service is for renewals only. It’s also worth noting that you won’t be able to use your old passport while you’re waiting for the new one. Your old passport is automatically canceled when you put in the request for the new one. So make sure you apply for renewal when you don’t have international travel coming up. (Or use the expedited service, which is not available online.) 

What information will I need to renew my passport online? 

Well, I just did it, and the website asked me for the following information (besides my name and address): 

• My passport number

• My social security number

• My height, eye color, hair color, and occupation

• The ICN, or inventory control number, from the inside back cover of the passport

• Your credit or debit card information, for payment

Can you take your own digital photos to renew your passport online? 

Yes! The system is very picky about the photos, as you may have guessed from how they are with traditional passport applications. The photo requirements are here, but the absolute safest way to be sure you’re doing it right is to go to a place that offers passport photo services. (I got my previous set done at a drugstore.)

It’ll ask you to take a photo in front of a plain, light-colored background, with no shadows on your face or behind you on the wall. Your eyes need to be open, you can’t be smiling, and you can’t wear anything on your face or head except religious headgear. The photo also needs to be taken from far enough away that it includes your shoulders and upper torso. 

I had a harder time with this than I expected. A plain light background, with no objects visible behind me? I tried a few walls in my house before I found one that would work, in a bathroom. They say no selfies, but I put my phone on a tripod and took a video. (Then I replayed the video, paused it, and took a screenshot.) My finished photo looked exactly like the examples they gave—or so I thought.

When you upload your photo, the system automatically crops it. Even though the examples are all tall rectangular photos, the automatic crop is a tight square. You can adjust it, and I did, but no matter what I did the system rejected my photo, saying that the “overall image quality” was bad. 

The example photos were more brightly lit, so I went to Instagram, uploaded my photo to the Stories tool, and chose the Melbourne filter. (Same idea as this hack to smooth photos with the Paris filter; just keep swiping until you get Melbourne, or whatever filter makes your photo look the passport-est.) When I uploaded it to the passport site, I let the crop tool do whatever it did by default. That went through. Next, I entered my credit card information, and I am now awaiting my new passport in the mail in (hopefully sooner than) six to eight weeks.

iOS 18 adds a lot of new features to the iPhone’s Messages app. You can now add text effects to iMessages, schedule messages to send later, and text Android friends with RCS instead of SMS. But despite months of beta testing, iOS 18 also comes with a baked-in Messages bug—one that might force you to delete part of your message history.

Here’s what’s going on: If you have an Apple Watch, there’s a feature that lets you share your current watch face with other users. The watch face shows up as an individual message in a conversation. If you reply to the watch face directly within the thread, either by swiping right on the watch face or long-pressing the message and hitting Reply, Messages will crash for both users in the conversation. Messages will continue to crash whenever you try to open this conversation again. Not only that, Messages may crash when texting other contacts, as well.

A 9to5Mac reader discovered the bug while running iOS 18, and shared their experience with the outlet. 9to5Mac was able to reproduce and confirm the bug on their end, too. And while there’s a way to stop the crashes from happening, you’re not going to like it.

How to fix the iOS 18 “watch face” Messages bug

At this time, the fix for this glitch is simple but not exactly fun: The only way to stop Messages from repeatedly crashing is to delete the conversation where the watch face was replied to. That could mean deleting a thread that’s years old, just because someone happened to reply directly to the watch face.

9to5Mac says bringing back the deleted conversation from Recently Deleted won’t work, either: If you do, you bring the bug—and the crashing—right back. One workaround to bring back these messages might be to erase your iPhone entirely, and restore your iPhone from a backup made prior to the watch face reply. If you use Messages in iCloud, however, you might be out of luck: With this feature enabled, your messages are synced over iCloud. That means the entire situation—including the buggy reply—might have already saved to the cloud.

Right now, the best thing you can do is to avoid sharing watch faces entirely. If you someone does share a watch face with you, do not directly reply to it, and tell the other person not to reply to it, either. Again, this applies only to replying to the watch face message directly; sending an individual message in response (i.e. not within a threaded reply) is fine.

Apple will likely issue a patch in the near future to fix this issue, and, once they do, it’ll be safe to reply to these messages. Until then, avoid doing so if you value your Messages history.