You drop your phone and the screen shatters. Ugh. While you've probably been smart about putting your critical data on the cloud — right? — there might be some things you still want to extract from your smartphone before you take it in for repair or swap it out for a new one. Or you not be in a position to afford a new phone right now. How do you continue to use your phone when the screen is cracked?

iOS: Augmented reality feels a little gimmicky — there are only so many games you can play on your coffee table, monsters you can drop into your backyard, and items you can sort-of measure. However, augmented reality apps that are thoughtful in their approach, such as Fields, are incredibly fun to play with.

iOS: The words “Apple” and “free” are a bit like oil and water — just ask anyone who works at the company and doesn’t get to partake in the Silicon Valley custom of free lunches and dinners for all. However, Father Cook is feeling generous this month, and Apple is offering up the excellent Obscura 2 camera app for free. Here’s how you get it (and save $7.99).

Mac: When you’re jamming to some background music while browsing the web, getting work done, or chatting with friends, a song might pop up on one of your playlists that you absolutely love. The more this happens throughout the day, the more distracted and disjointed your work is going to feel — and you’ll never be able to focus on studying, making money, or your MMO raid if you’re constantly jumping back to iTunes or Spotify to see what’s playing.

Although Apple makes a big song and dance about using their own silicon in iOS devices, as well as the T1 and T2 chips used in their MacBook Pro and iMac computers, they don't actually manufacture those chips. They're made by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). Over the weekend, TSMC was crippled by an outbreak of WannaCry, the highly virulent and damaging malware that caused widespread impact in May 2017.

Telstra's Blue Tick certifies that mobile handsets conform to a set of standards the carrier says ensures you get the best possible coverage on their network. And while many popular handsets offer that certification, one flagship handset doesn't. Apple's iPhone X is not listed among Telstra's Blue Tick certified handsets.

The last couple of days have been interesting for Apple. After reporting their best ever third quarter results - US$53.3b revenue and $11.5b profit with 17% growth - on the back of growing iPhone revenues and cloud service sales which which have doubled over the last three years. All that has delivered a jump in share price to over US$208 resulting in Apple reaching a market capitalisation of over US$1t. That's a "t" for trillion. But the news isn't good for everyone inside the Apple bubble.

Impulse buying is a thing, and we’re all guilty of it from time to time. Sometimes, if you’re feeling a little down, it feels good to place an order for that little thing you’ve been meaning to buy, but never quite got around to picking up. Or maybe you see a deal for something you’ve been eyeing and figure, “Eh, now’s as good a time as any.”

I love my Bluetooth earbuds, and considering the runaway success of Apple’s AirPods, I’m not alone. But every once in a while I run into a situation where I wish I still had some headphones with a good ol’ 3.5mm cable.

While there is a lot of hype around the launch of Apple’s new all-glass iPhone X, the attention of consumer lawyers is probably focused in a different direction. In April, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) alleged that Apple had contravened consumer law by wrongly representing to customers they were not entitled to have a phone defect remedied if their device had previously been fixed by an “unauthorised” repairer.

The action was brought after reports that some consumers who had had their screen repaired by a third party suffered an “error 53”, which disabled their iPhone or iPad, after downloading an iOS update. Given that the new iPhone launched on Tuesday in the US, it’s timely to think about the rights available to Apple fans under Australian law if they suffer that most common of breakages – the shattered screen.

We're turning the lens around for this week's Ask Lifehacker. Our Managing Editor Virginia Smith posed a question in our internal Slack channel that cuts wide and deep: "It's safe to delete photos from my iPhone, right?"

Apple looks set to dump TouchID across the entire iOS device range in device updates that are coming later this year. Supply chain leaks and secretly captured pictures of iPhone 9 mockups reveal a future where your face is your passcode.

Apple has looked into claims by a YouTube blogger that the company's newest MacBook Pro doesn't deliver on promised performance and is slower than the previous model. In their research, they substantiated the claims and discovered a software bug was the issue.

Apple released an update to their MacBook Pro systems about a week ago. While there were a few less-heralded upgrades made to the flagship notebook computer, Apple made sure we all knew that the new MacBook Pro can ship with a Core i9 processor. But it may turn out they should have upgraded the computer's cooling system as well.

We'll be the first to say that being worried about someone knowing if you've read their message is a little ridiculous. Reading the message is the whole point of texting and yet... we can also admit there are some strategic reasons why you'd want a message to appear unread. Many messaging services like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and DMs on Twitter all support read receipts. iMessage-sending iPhone users have read receipts too, with a fun caveat: they're very easy to get around.

In iOS, the read receipts option can be toggled on in the Settings app, under Messages. If you usually keep this option off then you'll never have to worry about sending read receipts, even if the person you're texting has theirs set to "On".

If you usually have read receipts turned on, however, but want to secretly read a message, 3D Touch is your friend here.

Apple quietly pushed out an update to the MacBook Pro last week. While the general look and feel wasn't changed, there was a significant speed bump with options added for the latest Intel Core i7 and Core i9 processors as well as the ability to add up to 32GB of memory and 4TB or storage. But a closer look reveals a couple of other big wins.

iOS: Ah 3D Touch, Apple’s pressure-sensitive smartphone feature. The artist formerly (creepily?) known as Force Touch surfaces additional options for users with iPhones that support it.

Some Sonos speakers are finally getting support for Apple's latest wireless streaming technology, AirPlay 2. Whether you're want to blast your favourite Netflix movies or rock out around your house, this update lets you connect your speakers to your iOS devices. Here's how to get started.

I don't know about you, but I'm still on the fence about Apple's Touch Bar. The most use I get out of it is accidentally tapping the virtual "back" button in my browser when trying to press a number key. That and I mainly use the Touch Bar to adjust my MacBook's brightness and volume. (Perhaps I need to configure more useful keys.)