Guides

Public WiFi hotspots are used by millions on a daily basis in coffee shops, hotels, airports and more. They are convenient and many are free, but there is also risk involved. Using a public network puts your information out there where sophisticated cyber criminals can eavesdrop and grab your passwords, account numbers and any other information that you'd rather keep private. There are even man-in-the-middle attacks where the thief sets up a WiFi hotspot with the same name as the public one and waits for unwitting people to accidentally join it instead of the legitimate one.

After seeding the developer version earlier this week, the iOS 10.3 Public Beta is now available for anybody who is enrolled in Apple's Beta Software Program. In the past several weeks there has been speculation that a "Dark Mode" feature possibly called "Theater Mode" would arrive with 10.3, but this rumor has been quashed. It turns out that Theater Mode is basically a Do-Not-Disturb mode in WatchOS 3.2 that will turn off raise to wake and mute sound when engaged. So the wait for a "Dark Mode" for the iPhone continues, but in the meantime iOS 10.3 does have a few new features:

If you are a Facebook user you likely sign into it from multiple devices and locations, whether from your personal iPhone, iPad or Mac, or from a computer in the lab, internet cafe or friend's house. Whatever the case may be, you obviously don't want to leave active sessions anywhere, as they would give access to a trove of private information and potentially allow for a lot of mischief. Thankfully there is a way to monitor and log out of open sessions from your iPhone or iPad.

Photos taken with the iPhone, or any digital camera for that matter, contain a variety of metadata including EXIF data (camera related data such as aperture, exposure, lens, etc.), GPS data and timestamps. This data can be accessed by anyone you share the photo with, so it clearly raises privacy concerns, e.g. you post a photo of your house that includes GPS coordinates of where your house is. Unfortunately there are currently no tools native to iOS that can remove or edit this metadata, so third party apps are required.

By default, the fourth-generation Apple TV automatically installs updates to tvOS and any installed apps. Shortly after Apple releases a system update or an app developer's changes are approved by the App Store, the new versions roll out. Some users aren't a fan of this feature, as it can bring unwelcome changes to familiar apps. Others like to see if a firmware update is reported to cause any problems before they install it on their device. Here's where switching to manual updates on the Apple TV comes into play.