Tips

Looking to purchase an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus in-store? Instead of just heading down to the local Apple Store or calling the closest carrier location, current inventory can easily be checked online. In fact, Apple makes it possible to reserve an iPhone before taking the trip to a brick and mortar Apple Store for pickup. The iPhone 7 Plus has been in short supply, along with Jet Black models and the iPhone 7 with 128 GB of storage. So what's the best way to find out if the iPhone you want is in stock?

Now that iOS 10 is here and the OTA downloading issues have been resolved by Apple, let's look at how to utilize Stickers in the Messages app. Stickers are images or animations you can send to other iOS users to enhance your text messages. They are not the same as the .GIFs or other photos found in the #images section in your App Drawer.

In iOS 10 Stickers can be sent as an individual text messages or they can be attached to already delivered text bubbles in a message thread. These are unlike regular images or .GIFs that can only be sent individually with a message attached.

The Facebook-owned messaging app, WhatsApp has updated its privacy policy to share data with its parent company. Yes, WhatsApp wants to share your phone number and analytics with Facebook even after promising it would never do so when it was acquired by the social network back in 2014. The updated privacy policy now reads:

"By coordinating more with Facebook, we’ll be able to do things like track basic metrics about how often people use our services and better fight spam on WhatsApp. And by connecting your phone number with Facebook’s systems, Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads if you have an account with them."

Great news for Twitter fans who enjoy reading the latest tweets after dark. The official Twitter app has received a built-in night mode. When enabled, this mode reverses text and background colors to enhance reading in low-light situations. While the feature is simple, it does the trick efficiently. Images are not altered, and night mode cannot be invoked automatically or on a schedule.

Every time Apple releases a major update people want to know if it is safe to install on their device. I'm not sure what internet urban legend has made people nervous about software updates, but it is a common concern amongst iPhone and iPad users. While it has been true that some updates have caused minor issues for older devices, Apple has always quickly resolved these problems with additional updates. As of right now there seems to be no reason anyone would not want to upgrade to iOS 10, however we won't officially know until the final version is released in the fall. Also don't forget, Apple now tests all its new features with developers and the public through its two beta programs. This helps avoid most potential problems with the final release.