You’ve long been able to take photos inside the Messages app on your iPhone, sending pictures directly into a conversations without saving them to your camera roll first. And you’ve also been able to grab photos from your library. But in iOS 12, both of these features are way better. Especially the camera. Not only does it ditch the stupid thumbnail-sized camera view, but you get access to some awesome new filters, and even AR stickers. Let’s take a look.

This week we map our minds with WriteMapper, check out the weather with new maps in Carrot Weather, and see who was sampled in that song playing on the radio in WhoSampled. And — if you can believe it — even more.

On the Mac, you can type any character available in there Unicode standard, just by opening up the Emoji & Symbols viewer (Control-Command-Space) and picking the one you want. The selection on iOS is much more limited. Even finding an ellipsis is such an odyssey I can never remember whether it’s available or not. But UniChar changes that. It’s a Universal iOS app that brings every single Unicode character to your device.

Can Google convince iPhone fans to jump ship for the new Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL?We show how Google’s Pixel lineup compares to iPhone 8 and the upcoming iPhone X.

In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, you’ll find that story and more. Check out the serious internal upgrades packed into iPhone 8 Plus, and Google’s new mini speaker. We’ve got some great Mac apps for photo editors, a roundup of the best chargers and stands for Apple Watch Series 3 and a review of the iconic Speidel Twist-O-Flex band. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes. Or read on for this week’s top stories.

iMessage apps aren’t all about stickers. They’re also a neat and handy way to share information from your favorite regular apps. And in iOS 11, they’ve become a lot easier to use. In iOS 10, iMessage apps required several taps just to get to a list to choose what you wanted. In iOS 11, there’s a brand-new dock at the bottom of the app which lets you quickly swipe and tap to the exact app you want, even if you have a lot of them active.