Merely days after the release of its new operating system – iOS 17 – Apple has had to issue urgent updates. 

iOS 17.0.1, now available globally, fixes three security flaws that left devices exposed to ‘malware’ – malicious computer software. 

The update is for all iPhone models still supported by the tech giant – so those released in 2018 and later (including iPhone XS and the 2nd generation iPhone SE). 

However, if you’ve got yourself a brand new iPhone 15 in the last few days, you’ll need an even newer update – iOS 17.0.2. 

iOS 17.0.2 also fixes an issue that may prevent the transfer of data directly from an older iPhone during setup.

Therefore, if you have the new iPhone 15, you should update it to iOS 17.0.2 before you try transferring data from your old device, not after.

To get either of the latest updates for your iPhone (or iPad, which is also affected), you just need to head to your device’s Settings and select ‘General’ followed by ‘Software Update’.

Tapping ‘Download and Install’ should start the update, which could take a few minutes to complete. 

Apple’s new iOS mobile operating system, iOS 17, was released last week, a few days before the iPhone 15 hit the shelves (although iOS 17 was made available for other recent iPhone models too). 

In a web post, Apple disclosed the three security flaws that are affecting iOS 17.0, which will be fixed in minutes as long as you update. 

One of these flaws allowed a malicious app to be able ‘to bypass signature validation’ – meaning it may be able to run without the user noticing. 

Apple disclosed the flaws following tip-offs from Google and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab research group. 

iOS 17.0.1 – which is for all recent iPhone models apart from the new iPhone 15 – fixes the bugs.  

Meanwhile, iOS 17.0.2 includes the three security fixes of iOS 17.0.1, but it also corrects the iPhone 15’s data transfer issue, the tech giant said in another post.

If you have any one of the new iPhone 15 models, you should notice in your Settings that the newest software update available is iOS 17.0.2.

iOS 17.0.2 fixes the data transfer issue that is issue specific to the iPhone 15 lineup, so the update is not necessary for older iPhone models. 

Therefore, if you have an older iPhone and you see the latest update available is iOS 17.0.1, you don’t not have to worry that iOS 17.0.2 is not available. 

The most important thing is updating your iPhone from iOS 17.0 (or iPadOS 17.0 if you have an iPad) because it leaves your device vulnerable to bugs. 

Once this is done you should be able to enjoy the new functionality offered by iOS 17, as intended by Apple. 

The generation of software includes several exciting features, including a Live Voicemail tool and the ability to share your contact details simply by touching your iPhone to another. 

iOS 17 was released a few days before iPhone 15 hit the shelves, leading to packed crowds from London to Beijing. 

The standard range of new iPhones start at £799 and are equipped with a new titanium frame, USB-C charging port and new artificial intelligence features. 

The two most expensive options in the iPhone 15 family, the Pro and Pro Max, reach a whopping £1,499 and £1,599, depending on storage. 

The moment that Apple fans have been waiting for is finally almost here, as the iOS 17 update is set to be released today. 

The software update includes several exciting new features, including a Live Voicemail tool and the ability to share your contact details simply by touching your iPhone to another.

‘With iOS 17, we’ve made iPhone more personal and intuitive by deeply considering the features we all rely on every day,’ said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. 

‘Phone, FaceTime, and Messages are central to how we communicate, and this release is packed with updates we think our users are going to love.’

Here’s everything you need to know about iOS 17, including how and when to download it on your iPhone. 

Which iPhones are compatible with iOS 17? 

iOS 17 will be compatible with the iPhone XS and newer models. 

This means you’ll be able to download it if you have one of the following iPhones:

• iPhone 14
• iPhone 14 Plus
• iPhone 14 Pro
• iPhone 14 Pro Max
• iPhone 13
• iPhone 13 mini
• iPhone 13 Pro
• iPhone 13 Pro Max
• iPhone 12
• iPhone 12 mini
• iPhone 12 Pro
• iPhone 12 Pro Max
• iPhone 11
• iPhone 11 Pro
• iPhone 11 Pro Max
• iPhone XS
• iPhone XS Max
• iPhone XR
• iPhone SE (2nd generation or later)

What time will the update be available? 

Apple has confirmed that the iOS 17 update will be launching today, although it is yet to announce the exact time for the release. 

However, based on previously updates, it’s likely iOS 17 will be available at around 10:00 PT (18:00 BST). 

How do you download it?

If you have one of the compatible iPhones listed above, once the update is released, you’ll be able to download it via the Settings app. 

Open the app, then General > Software Update. 

Once iOS 17 is available, you’ll be able to download it here. 

What are some of the key features? 

1. Check In

With Apple’s new Check In feature, you’ll automatically be notified when a family member or friend gets to their destination safely.

‘After a user initiates a Check In, their friend or family member will automatically be notified as soon as the user arrives,’ Apple explained. 

‘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. 

‘Any information shared is end-to-end encrypted.’

2. Live Voicemail 

If you’re over a certain age, you’ll remember old-school voicemail machines — the kind that let you pick up the phone in the middle of the message if you decided the call was worth answering. 

Apple’s bringing that back with the Live Voicemail feature, which transcribes the message in real time and lets you take the call.

‘Live Voicemail gives users the ability to see real-time transcription as someone leaves a voicemail, and the opportunity to pick up while the caller is leaving their message,’ Apple said. 

‘Calls identified as spam by carriers won’t appear as Live Voicemail, and will instead be instantly declined. With the power of the Neural Engine, Live Voicemail transcription is handled on-device and remains entirely private.’

3. NameDrop 

The days of having to manually type a new friend’s contact details into your iPhone are a thing of the past in iOS 17. 

The update includes the ability to share your contact details, simply by bringing your iPhone close to another.  

‘NameDrop allows users to easily share contact information by simply bringing their iPhones together, or by bringing an iPhone and Apple Watch together,’ Apple said. 

‘With the same gesture, users can also share content or start SharePlay to listen to music, watch a movie, or play a game while in close proximity between iPhone devices.’

4. StandBy

If your iPhone is charing across the room, it can be annoying having to stand up to check what notifications are coming through. 

But a new feature in iOS 17 called StandBy will make it much easier to glance over at your device. 

‘StandBy gives users a full-screen experience with glanceable information designed to be viewed from a distance when iPhone is on its side and charging,’ Apple said. 

‘StandBy is perfect on a nightstand, kitchen counter, or desk, and can be personalised to display a range of beautiful clock styles, favourite photos, or widgets, including Smart Stacks, which surface the right widgets at the right time.’ 

5. Screen Distance

The Screen Time tool has a new feature called Screen Distance, which will alert you if you’re holding your iPhone too close to your face. 

‘Screen Distance uses the TrueDepth camera to encourage users to move their device farther away after holding it closer than 12 inches from their face for an extended period of time,’ Apple said. 

6. Autocorrect improvements

iOS 17 will keep Apple’s autocorrect feature from correcting one of the English language’s favoured expletives to ‘ducking.’ 

‘Autocorrect receives a comprehensive update with a transformer language model, a state-of-the-art on-device machine learning language model for word prediction — improving the experience and accuracy for users every time they type,’ Apple said.

‘It also receives a refreshed design to better support typing, and sentence-level autocorrections can fix more types of grammatical mistakes.’

When Meghan Markle stepped out in a $1,600 wool coat, Hermes scarf and Chanel flats last month, it wasn’t her outfit that caught attention. 

Her most talked-about accessory was a small blue sticker on her left wrist – an anti-stress NuCalm patch that has become popular among wellness gurus and biohackers and promises to provide ‘resonance and frequencies’. 

As a person with a high baseline stress level, I was immediately intrigued – and was prepared to pay the $80 for a pack of 20 NuCalm stickers (plus the $30-a-month for the company’s companion app).

If it is good enough to keep the Duchess of Sussex calm,  I figured it would be an easy counter to my daily stressors.

When I went to NuCalm’s website to learn what I was in for, I was met with jargon that only a Ph.D. student could understand.

The site said the sticker works by ‘tapping into the body’s Pericardium Meridian with particular electromagnetic frequencies of inhibitory neurotransmitters to interrupt the HPA axis and downregulate sympathetic tone.’ 

Come again? 

I couldn’t help but feel the jargon was intentional to mask the fact the sticker is based on traditional Chinese medicine techniques rather than sound science.

For 10 days straight, I wore the sticker on the ‘pericardium-6 acupuncture point’, which is a fancy way of saying the inside of my left wrist.

In traditional Chinese medicine, that pressure point is said to be part of the ‘Pericardium meridian energy pathway’ which, when stimulated through acupressure, can influence the flow of vital energy or ‘qi’ and blood along that pathway. 

If you rolled your eyes while reading that description, you’re like me. But for the first two days of my trial, I was surprised by how much I felt the reduction in general stress.

Whether it was a placebo effect or sheer optimism about a possible anxiety treatment that’s not a pill made by big pharma, I’m still not quite sure.

When you wear the sticker, you get a mild sense of pressure on your wrist which took a bit of getting used to.

After around day three, and I started to forget the sticker was there, the stress and anxiety came back – which makes me confident there’s something psychosomatic going on when it comes to NuCalm’s anti-anxiety effects.

There were long periods throughout the test where I noticed that my breathing felt smooth and more consistent than usual – but again, was I just hypersensitive to my body? I’m still undecided.

As the week went on, I would feel bouts of uneasiness creep back in – waiting on the claustrophobic subway platform during rush hour or holding my breath on the phone as the dial tone buzzed hoping my source on the other end would pick up. 

But periodically, when I spotted the sticker on the inside of my wrist again, my breathing would ease up, my thoughts would slow to a normal pace, and my muscles would loosen.

It was as if the sticker were a reminder rather than an actual medical device. 

I attempted to dig up some scientific research that could offer an answer to my question – was it all in my head? 

But the answer eluded me, even after following up with the NuCalm website’s repeated claims to be ‘clinically proven’. 

I found no such clinical trial or research on any sort of wearable bio-signaling disc.

When it comes to sleep quality, I did feel  marginally more rested over the 10 days. 

The NuCalm Deep Sleep channel on the app features music that can run for hours, though it’s not the actual music that lulls you sleep.

The frequencies from the music are said to synchronize brain waves to other frequencies associated with different states of being – alpha and theta, which mimic the body’s natural communication processes to initiate sleep.

The difference after a night of wearing the disc and listening to hours of low frequencies was marginal, though I noticed myself hitting the snooze button fewer times, suggesting the quality of my sleep was improved. 

Given the spotty science and tepid reviews from neuroscientists, it’s worth dissecting the company’s claims. 

The company likens the small disc inside each sticker to a battery holding a charge. 

When the sticker is pressed against a pressure point, the body pulls frequencies of energy from it that activate the part of the nervous system that modulates our responses to stress. 

The question of what exactly is inside this disc to prompt the sort of communication between neurons the company is so proud of remains a bit murky. 

The company credits frequency tuning and sound resonance to make its discs work but elsewhere on the site it says that the discs include ‘a proprietary blend of inhibitory neurotransmitters, primarily GABA.’ 

But elsewhere, NuCalm’s CEO Jim Poole has said the discs each contain a tiny Tesla coil to emit frequencies. 

The technology was developed over a period of 20 years by the late neuroscientist Dr Blake Holloway.

But Mr Poole is not himself a scientist, rather he was a business major from Babson College in Massachusetts.

Sophie Summers, a blogger on the Fitness Junkie Blog, said of her experience with a 30-minute session of meditation through the app coupled with the sticker on her wrist: ‘As the beautiful sounds swirled around me I could feel my whole body relax.

‘It was as though I could feel my entire body as once but also parts of it individually. My whole body, but especially my arms and chest became very heavy.

‘The thought of moving my arms seemed like an impossible task. But the feeling was so wonderful that I wouldn’t dare even try for the fear of losing the deep relaxation.

‘I was calm, relaxed, grounded.’

The price tag likely will not deter people who pride themselves on being attuned to their personal health, nor will its lofty promises deter so-called wellness gurus who have successfully monetized the quest for self-improvement.

For most  on board, long-haul flights are endured with a sleep mask, a few films or TV shows… but for the pilots flying the plane, it’s a very different story. 

Despite common belief, pilots have a lot more to do in the skies after switching to autopilot, and one pilot has taken to TikTok to set the record straight. 

In response to a confused TikToker who asked: ‘What the hell to pilots do for an 18 hour flight, like Singapore to New York, 18 hours, all they need to do is take off and land,’  airline pilot Gary Baumgardner said 

Sharing to his 240,700 followers the pilot, based at LAX, said that it’s not ‘entirely accurate’ to say they just take off and land. 

Clearing up any confusion, the airline pilot spoke to MailOnline.  

Speaking in the viral video, after just completing a close to 18-hour shift, Gary said he wanted to ‘clear up’ some misconceptions. 

He said: ‘Everybody thinks we’re like Homer Simpson up there and there’s just like a big button we push. One button sit there call it the autopilot and we do nothing.’

But, Gary explained: ‘The autopilot is a tool the way a bat is a tool for a Major League Baseball player when he wants to go hit a home run.’

For example, the pilot explained that if they are flying during a thunderstorm, autopilot cannot just automatically direct you out of it. 

He added: ‘If ATC [Air Traffic Control] tells you to climb or descend or turn, that just doesn’t happen with the autopilot, we have to do that.’

According to Gary, they have to complete logs, take ATC calls and do ‘all kinds of other things’ such as do system checks. 

‘And that’s just if we have nothing that’s going on that’s non normal or emergencies,’ he added.

Another common misconception is regarding pilot’s sleeping arrangements, but the pilot soon cleared that up and told followers that pilot’s can sleep. 

He explained: ‘I know for a fact that if you have a flight that is 18 hours long, you have four pilots and we actually have our own beds and bunk beds up there and we sleep and we eat.’

On an 18-hour flight, he said, pilots can eat breakfast, dinner and lunch – but perhaps not in the correct order due to time differences.  

According to the pilot, most international flights have ‘rest bunks’ for the crew to sleep in, but for those that don’t, he said: ‘They’ll reserve a first class seat that you can sit down and lay in so you can get some rest.’

Since it was posted, the TikTok has raked in nearly four million views, and has received thousands of comments from intrigued users. 

After much confusion in the comment section, Gary confirmed to MailOnline that there are always two pilots at the controls and that they will only be given breaks when ‘you have at least three pilots.’ 

He explained: ‘Breaks will vary depending on how many crew members and the length of flight but typically are 2-3 hours.’ 

Gary revealed that he actually prefers longer flights because it is ‘more efficient with your time and pay.’

He added: ‘Flying 1 flight that’s 6 hours to Hawaii is more pleasant than flying 3 flights that are 2 hours each. However, not all pilots think this way and many prefer shorter flights.’

One person wrote: ‘It’s an incredibly tough job,’ while another added: ‘Thank you for keeping us safe.’ 

One ex-flight attendant commented: ‘I’m glad you’ve explained this because people used to get mad seeing that pilots are asleep.’ 

Meanwhile, another added: ‘Imagine just chilling in first class and you see your pilot chilling next to you.’ 

Keen on a high-flying life as cabin crew?

Before you send your CV off to a prospective airline, pay close attention to the recollections of former flight attendant Marika Mikusova, who spent five years working for a ‘luxury airline’.

The 33-year-old, who has penned a book about her cabin crew career called Diary of a Flight Attendant, revealed to MailOnline Travel that the job can sometimes be distinctly unglamorous.

When we asked her how the reality of being a flight attendant compared to the preconceptions, Czech Marika, who lives in Prague, said: ‘All of us pretty soon realised “flight-attending” is not just about looking glamorous and smiling. It’s just a fragment of the duties.

‘I experienced a passenger telling me “you are just an air waitress”. Ouch! Yet, I had to remain professional and deliver his preferred meal and whatever he asked for service-wise.

‘What passengers don’t know – and I can’t blame them, it’s not common knowledge – is that we are primarily trained to get them safely out of the plane in case of emergency. Sometimes this part of the job is underappreciated from the passengers’ point of view.’

What were the toughest aspects of the job?

Marika said: ‘Smiling all the time! Really, try to smile the whole day. It will take its toll on you. Like apologising to a chair when you accidentally bump into it while going to a bathroom in the middle of the night.’

She explained that rude passengers didn’t help, adding: ‘I can imagine that a lot of my colleagues struggled at the beginning and had to learn how to politely deal with rude passengers without yelling at them back.’

And jumping from one time zone to another took its toll.

She said: ‘Going to bed at different hours inevitably messes up your body clock. And if you don’t take good care of yourself, you might end up ill a few times per month. I experienced coughing and had blocked ears countless times a year.’

Then there was the strict code of conduct – and the ease with which crew could find themselves being reprimanded.

Marika revealed: ‘What I personally found demotivating about the job was the atmosphere of fear in which we had to work. Even minor nonsensical misconduct got us a first-row ticket in our manager’s office. If you forget to bring a customer his drink and he complains, your supervisor has to write a report for the airline about it.’

And Marika had her patience tested fairly often by passengers.

She said: ‘Customers spat on the floor, peed on the seats, we found traces of excrement on the toilet wall once, and one passenger wanted me to bottle-feed her baby – she seemed to think it was my duty.

‘And passengers would ask for our phone numbers.’

Marika revealed that her airline created a group to help cabin crew maintain their mental health – ‘but it wasn’t much use’.

She said: ‘We were scared to talk about our mental health issues because we might have been found “unfit to fly” and on that account fired. For that reason most of us kept for themselves the sad reality of what was happening inside of us.’

Would she ever return to the skies?

Marika added: ‘Under a few conditions, yes. First of all, the flying hours would have to be decreased to a manageable level. Because if you fly too much, you can’t rest properly and sooner or later you might start having multiple health problems.

‘If the working environment – i.e management – changed and was more understanding rather than backstabbing, then yes.

‘Though when it comes to passengers, there is nothing to be done about certain behaviours. But no matter how “complicated” the passengers were, I wouldn’t change them. And I wouldn’t even have to if the first two conditions were met.’

Marika Mikusova’s book Diary of a Flight Attendant is out now. Click here to order a copy. You can find Marika tweeting at twitter.com/letuska_m and her Instagram account is here.

A young Australian woman has revealed a long list of holiday fails which threatened to derail her recent girls’ trip to Europe.

The list includes luggage, broken ankles, and pizza so bad the eight women still can’t talk about the revolting cheese topping without gagging.

Izzy Fraser, 24, spent months planning the dream four-week holiday – but says everything that could go wrong did. 

She finds it funny to look back on but also wants others to learn from her mistakes.

She told FEMAIL while there were way more curveballs than she could have ever expected she still had the best holiday of her life.

The novice traveler has only been overseas three times and said the trip hasn’t spoiled her will to explore – she will just do carry-on only to avoid half the hassle next time.

The girls hadn’t even left Australia before their problems began, something she now looks back and laughs about.

Two members of the group had forgotten to book luggage on the flight over and had to fork out an extra $250 to check in, she said on TikTok.

Then at the first stop Izzy, who had never been to Europe before, either had an allergic reaction or was bitten by bed bugs.

‘I am still not sure which one it was, but I blamed the lady at the accommodation for bed bugs, obviously,’ she added.

‘That lasted like five days, it was so uncomfortable,’ she added.

The girls also ‘lost’ their luggage for ten days during the trip – and because some of them didn’t keep boarding passes proving the inconvenience to their insurance companies was more difficult.

‘I haven’t even tried to do that (insurance) yet because I literally couldn’t comprehend that overseas,’ she said.

Then the group had ‘really dodgy’ accommodation in Zagreb, Croatia. The area felt unsafe, the staff were unhelpful and to make matters worse when they ordered in some pizza it was inedible.

‘The cheese was, I can’t even talk about it,’ she said gagging, adding that she doesn’t think she will be able to eat Margherita pizza again.

Everyone got some kind of virus on the trip too, she explained, saying she was unwell first before everyone else followed suit.

A near-miss moments after getting a hire car rounded out the first of four videos where she runs through the bad things which happened on the trip.

The group also delayed the rest of their trip by a day, staying in Zagreb for an extra night after the airport said their luggage would probably arrive then.

‘Obviously it didn’t so that was a waste of money,’ she said.

She added they did move places for the extra night because they didn’t want to stay in the ‘hood’ any longer.

The delayed luggage meant the girls had 45 minutes to go shopping for a five day festival on day three of their trip.

‘This is eight girls running around, like I was sweating, I was sprinting around this shopping centre buying the most silly things,’ she said.

They also got a parking ticket and said it took them three weeks to work out how to pay it.

On the trip there were plenty of delayed buses and planes.

‘Most of my flights were delayed, the buses were just super inconsistent,’ she said.

Especially in Greece where she added they just come along whenever they want.

In the Croatian city of Dubrovnik the friends had more accommodation woes.

She described the man who worked at their lodgings as super creepy, and said she felt unsafe in the car as he sped through the streets while on his mobile phone.

‘Nearly hit a car then leaned across [and said] “I keep you safe” – well I don’t feel safe love,’ she said.

The accommodation wasn’t what was pictured so the friends ran away and found something else.

‘This was at midnight,’ she said, explaining they were also ripped off 100 Euros and were being laughed at on the street as they figured out what to do.

In part three the young woman said a day after a ‘really chaotic day’ the group was on a boat trip when another passenger broke an ankle.

She said the woman had to be carried off the boat and people had to look after her kids, with the whole episode pushing the tour 30 minutes behind schedule.

‘I was just like OMG that could have easily been one of us, because of the track record.’

The group weren’t even meant to be on that boat but the one they had initially booked cancelled five minutes before it was due to depart.

They also had a terrifying jet boat ride: ‘Didn’t expect to nearly lose my life’.

The group also picked a 2am bus by mistake.

At the end of the trip they then lost their luggage again – just for two days.

Her friend also got a massive electric shock which made her shake and bounce onto the bed. Her hand was then hurting for days.

In the final video Izzy said she lost her AirPods, immediately after losing her luggage.

‘I just wanted to listen to some music, could have cried,’ she said.

The friend who almost got electrocuted had another injury after trying to open a drink without a bottle opener.

The lid came off with force and smacked her in the eye.

Izzy hurt herself twice in two days, the first time she was in the ocean when boats sped past her, making waves which beat her against the rocks.

Then she fell over in the middle of the street with he backpack on, hurting her knee. 

To her embarrassment there was a very busy restaurant opposite and cars had to stop for her – meaning far too many eyes were trained in her direction.

She was also hungry a lot of the trip because she is lactose intolerant and gluten free, making a lot of the food off limits.

Izzy said she had the time of her life and wouldn’t change a thing.

If you’ve had your X (formerly Twitter) account for more than nine years, you might want to check on your old tweets.  

Users have noticed that photos and links posted to the platform before December 2014 have been taken out and replaced by dead URLs. 

A famous example is the Oscars selfie posted by Ellen DeGeneres in March 2014, which vanished from her tweet, although it has since reappeared. 

It’s unclear if it’s an accident due to a technical trouble at X or a deliberate cost-cutting exercise to ease the demand of company servers. 

Musk is yet to address the issue, although he admitted in a post on Saturday that X ‘may fail’ – shortly after saying he’ll remove the block feature. 

If you’ve only joined X in the last 8.5 years, this fresh issue won’t affect you.  

But if you’ve been a long-time user and have posted tweets of your treasured photos, it might be worth checking if they’re still there.

To search for your own tweets from before December 2014, type into the Twitter search bar the following: ‘From:[your username] until:2014-01-01’. 

By doing this, MailOnline found that some images were still appearing in tweets from before December 2014, but took screenshots in case their days are numbered. 

It’s also worth downloading your Twitter archive, which lets you save tweets and all the media within them. 

X’s newest problem affects posts containing images but also any hyperlinks converted through Twitter’s built-in URL shortener (t.co), according to the Verge. 

Tweets themselves are displaying, but it’s the content within them that’s having problems being displayed properly. 

Content appears as URLs, but these can’t be clicked on, and copying and pasting them into another search bar only takes you back to the original tweet. 

X user Tom Coates, who detailed the issue in a string of posts, called it ‘more vandalism’ from the Twitter owner and ‘another cost-saving exercise’. 

‘Twitter has now removed all media posted before 2014,’ he said.

‘That’s – so far – almost a decade of pictures and videos from the early 2000s removed from the service.

‘Every image and video removed and replaced with a dead link.’ 

In a message tacked on below Coates’ first post, X said the missing images ‘are still saved on Twitter/X’s servers’ but that the links are broken ‘at the moment’. 

Regardless of this, Coates pointed out that the images ‘are still effectively deleted from the public internet’. 

It’s unclear if Musk’s team is planning to restore the images to the tweets; MailOnline has contacted the firm for more information. 

It’s possible it’s just more temporary technical trouble from the firm, which has experienced outages thought to be due to tweaks to the site by developers. 

Outages have been a fixture ever since Musk began running Twitter, leading to speculation that there aren’t enough staff to fix its problems.

It comes as the billionaire owner admitted in a surprisingly honest message at the weekend that X ‘may fail’. 

On Saturday he posted: The sad truth is that there are no great “social networks” right now. 

‘We may fail, as so many have predicted, but we will try our best to make there be at least one.’ 

Musk recently caused a backlash by stating his intention to remove the ability to ‘block’ other users across X, excluding private direct messages. 

If enforced, it could means users have to contend with more harassment and the consequences of more unregulated free speech. 

While it remains unclear if Musk will follow through on disabling the block feature, many users on the platform pleaded with the billionaire to reconsider.

‘Block is a critical peace of mind issue for many people because it generally gets the cyber stalkers to move on,’ one X user said. 

Musk took over Twitter in October and has just changed its name to X as part of plans to turn it into what he’s described as an ‘everything’ app. 

A shiny ‘X’ logo was installed at the platform’s headquarters in San Francisco before being removed due to complaints from local residents.  

Millions of high-earning Americans to lose popular 401(K) tax deduction – here’s what it means for YOU

• Workers aged over 50 making catch-up contributions to their 401(K)s will only be able to funnel them into a Roth account from next year
• It means they will be taxed upfront – rather than when they withdraw the money
• READ MORE: Is a Roth 401(K) REALLY a good idea? Finance guru issues warning

By Helena Kelly Consumer Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 11:49 EDT, 17 July 2023 | Updated: 08:33 EDT, 2 August 2023

Emergency slides are installed on planes to save lives – but they deploy with such force that they could take one away.

This fact is never lost on cabin crew, with former flight attendant Jay Roberts revealing to MailOnline Travel that accidentally activating an emergency slide ‘is a mistake that flight attendants and airport staff worldwide dread, causing so much anxiety we have nightmares about doing it’.

Jay, who has worked as senior cabin crew for Emirates and who runs the popular Fly Guy’s Cabin Crew Lounge network, said: ‘Even with several checks and balances involving more than one person to ensure the slides don’t open accidentally, mishaps still happen, and at larger airlines, they happen several times a year and cost airlines tens of thousands to repack. In addition to being costly and causing great embarrassment among colleagues, being known as that crew who “blew a slide”, the mistake poses a real danger to safety.

‘No matter its size, a plane must be able to be evacuated in 90 seconds or less. Every second counts, which is why the emergency slides deploy with enough pressure to go fully inflated in a matter of seconds. 

‘That force can cause a deadly blow to someone standing in its way and not expecting its deployment.

‘While I don’t know of an incident where someone has died due to being crushed by a slide, there have been times when it came close. In 2013, Asiana Flight 214 crashed on landing at San Francisco International Airport in California. The impact force caused two of the eight slides to inflight inwards trapping two flight attendants at their stations beside the exits. One of the flight attendants was reported to be choking to death from the pressure and was saved by the quick action of a senior crew member who used a cabin emergency axe to deflate the side.

‘Due to this safety risk, most modern aircraft exit slides are designed to disarm automatically when opened from the outside. 

‘What’s more, whether the airline’s procedure calls for the door to be opened by the ground staff outside the plane or the flight attendants, all airlines will have a slide-disarming process at the end of every flight to minimize the risk of accidental slide deployment. When you pull into the gate, you will always hear an announcement like “cabin crew prepare for arrival and stand by for all call”.

‘After this PA, the crew are released from their jumpseats and they disarm their doors. If they are on a plane large enough to have other crew stations, they will visually or physically check that their colleagues in the neighbouring station have also disarmed their door.

‘On modern aircraft, the lead flight attendant will check a screen at the forward left side door to see if the slide status has changed from armed to disarmed. That crew member will then call all the flight attendant stations to recheck the slides verbally.

‘Each crew member will say their station location followed by the confirmation “disarmed and crosschecked”. Then the lead crew member will announce: “Clear to open doors.”

‘Following this, the crew member will still follow strict procedures to begin the opening process. You could not open the door at my former airline without a senior crew member called “the checker” behind you. You would look at the disarming lever and confirm it was disarmed with the words “door disarmed”. The checker would then reconfirm, saying, “Door disarmed – you are clear to open.” This was followed by slowly opening the door while watching for warning lights to indicate the door was still attached to the arming mechanism.’

Jay revealed that in addition, ground staff are trained on disarming the doors from the outside, with the most essential step being to ‘step to the side or back as the door opens in case the slide inflates’.

Jay said: ‘At my previous airline, the ground staff would give a thumbs up to the crew through the window, indicating it was safe to open the door, then they would step back and wait for us to open, giving themselves an escape in case the slide blew out of its hold.’

The former flight attendant remarked that even with all these procedures in place – ‘accidents happen’.

He continued: ‘When you see photos or videos of slides deployed in the media, they are most commonly a result of crew oversights, older aircraft with manual disarming procedures, equipment malfunctions, or a passenger opening the exits on the ground.

‘In my experience, inadvertent slide deployment was often caused by crew fatigue. For example, at my former airline, we operated many long night flights, and it was the airline’s procedure that all doors were to be opened by the crew when they were on board. Generally, the slide deployments happened after these night flights.

‘I remember one incident where the junior crew member disarmed their door, walked to the opposite exit to check their colleague had disarmed their door, came back to their exit, which had been verified by a checker to be disarmed, opened the arming lever guard and rearmed the door, ignored the warning lights that activate as you start to open the door in the armed mode, and blew the slide on opening.

‘The result of a slide activation on passengers is often a long delay or flight cancellation. If the aircraft was operating an active flight, a new slide must be attached, which can take time to source and install. If one is unavailable, the aircraft can still operate. However, procedures typically require passengers to be moved from that area around the inoperative door, and if the flight is full, the number of passengers has to be reduced, meaning you could be kicked off the flight.

‘Emergency slides are vital to commercial aviation and save thousands of lives annually. They are highly respected safety tools, and for those that get the rare chance to use them, the incident is an occurrence that goes down in their career history books and often goes on to become an airline legend. Aviation safety is a system based on trial and error, with each incident being used as a case study to learn and improve from. Each slide activation is investigated, and the data is used to form better procedures and airplane components to protect profits and people better.’

For more from Jay visit www.instagram.com/aflyguytravels and www.facebook.com/aflyguyslounge.

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By Shivali Best For Mailonline

Published: 10:23 EDT, 13 August 2023 | Updated: 12:03 EDT, 13 August 2023