iPhone 7

Crack down on text message spam with SMS Shield

There’s no two ways about it: unsolicited texts are an issue. Be it outright spam, carrier notifications or simply unpalatable contacts, more often than not your phone fails to protect you from some rather unsavoury messages.

Interestingly, text message security is an unusual topic rarely broached, either because it remains forced to live a sad existence in the shadow of the seemingly more profitable email bubble, or because it’s decidedly trickier to contrive a service that genuinely satisfies text message users.

For all intents and purposes, SMS Shield has pulled off that feat. Once downloaded and set up (subscription fees range from $5.99 yearly to $0.99 monthly corresponding with a 1-year, 1/2-year and 1-month package), you can’t help but feel that your iPhone’s Messages app just battened down the hatches.

Is the iPhone 8 worth the upgrade from the iPhone 7?

There’s undoubtedly a lot of hype for Apple's new iPhone X, but if you’re looking to save some money and get the iPhone 8 or iPhone 8 Plus instead, then you’re probably interested in how it compares to the previous generation model and whether it's worth the upgrade.

While they look similar at first glance, some distinguishing features set the two models apart. In this piece, we’ll dispel some confusion by going over some of the most significant changes between the previous-generation iPhone 7/7 Plus and the new iPhone 8/8 Plus.

Weight, size, and battery life: iPhone X vs iPhone 8 vs iPhone 7

Rather than announcing just one new iPhone this year with two different screen sizes, Apple shook things up by announcing an entirely new iPhone X with a 5.8-inch edge-to-edge OLED display alongside their typical 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone models.

There’s bound to be some confusion about some of the most important specs between the devices, so in this piece, we’ll talk about the differences in weight, dimensions, and battery life as we do every year.

Elk’s smart use of a Live Wallpaper tackles your biggest peeve with currency converters

Anyone having the pleasure (or obligation) of travelling overseas has likely had their share of exposure to currency converters on iPhone. Whether you have selected your travel companion on the basis of features, price or mindlessly downloaded the first search result, in my experience the common denominator across the board is an off-putting level of self importance. More often that not, currency converters lack an understanding of their role on your phone.

New iOS vulnerability enables brute-force passcode attacks on iPhone 7

We've seen devices for brute-forcing phone passcodes before. This $500 box, demonstrated on video by YouTuber “EverythingApplePro”, uses an exploit in iOS 10.3.3 and iOS 11 beta to brute-force hack and bypass the Lock screen passcode of up to three iPhone 7/Plus handsets at a time—but it could take days to work, depending on the complexity of the passcode.