If you're a fan of jail-breaking iOS devices then its a fair bet you've spent a few bucks on apps that probably would not have been released via Apple's App Store. If that's you and you saved your Paypal information with your Cydia account, it's time to pop over there and clear the decks. There's no leak but a vulnerability has been detected and the Cydia store's founder, Jay Freeman, is recommending that people remove their Paypal information.

Android tends to beat iOS in reviews on customisation, app selection, and cloud integration. After five years with an iPhone, I decided to put Android to the test and buy a Google Pixel. A year later, I wish I hadn't switched.

This week, Epic Games made the decision to pull all of its Infinity Blade games from Apple’s App Store. For fans of the franchise, it was a huge bummer. An even bigger bummer: if you had temporarily removed the app from your phone, now you can’t get it back from the App Store.

Guess what? A bunch of apps like knowing where you are, so that their developers can then take that data, package it up for various advertising companies, and make a quick buck off of your precise whereabouts—including where you go and how long you spend there.

Working at home means you're surrounded by all of your stuff: from that pile of dirty dishes in your sink to that pile of laundry that's still unfolded. And maybe you have a pressing deadline along with a pressing need to sort that pile of books (you sure do have a lot of piles!). Good news: you can do both with the help of a few time management and chore management apps that can double as productivity boosters when you need to get a handle on your day.

Google's short-lived messaging service, Allo, is going the way of Google Reader, Google Health, and the Dodo bird. It's not a surprise — Google began porting and integrating some of the more interesting features (like Google Assistant and web support) from Allo into Messages app for Android earlier this year, signalling that Allo's time may be short. Yesterday, Google confirmed that it will soon be ceasing Allo support entirely in favour of the more widely-used Messages.

While it wasn't the only reason I picked up an Apple Watch Series 4 earlier this year, the electrocardiogram feature Apple demonstrated at its big September event was certainly one of the smartwatch's most unique features. I doubt there's anything wrong with my ticker, and Apple's implementation still isn't as good as the ECG you'd get at the hospital — of course — but it's fun to see your heart's electrical activity on your wrist.

It’s great when an app allows you to add extra security — a fingerprint scan or a depth map of your face, for example — to access its contents. In case someone ever gets their hands on your unlocked device (or figures out your PIN), it’ll be trickier for them to access critical apps, like your banking apps, if they don’t have your finger or face nearby.

Bad news for those of you with small hands or small pockets (or both): It looks like phones are staying big for the foreseeable future. But owning a handset with a big screen doesn't mean you can't operate it with just one hand if you need to — these are the software tricks and apps you need to familiarise yourself with.

MacStories blogger Frederico Vitticci has created an incredibly robust iOS shortcut called Home Screen Icon Creator, which allows you to create custom buttons that look different and, if you want to get fancy, to fine-tune what happens when you open an app. It also lets you create customisable icons for iOS shortcuts and icons for calling people from your contacts.

Being a notepad and pen replacement is just one of the roles that smartphones fill for us now — alongside being a digital camera, a musical jukebox, an address book, and an ever-expanding encyclopedia. Not all the options are created equal, though. Whatever the reason you need to take down notes, these are the best tools to do the job.

Personalised ads — they aren’t just on your screens anymore. For the past few years, advertisers have been experimenting with ways to apply all that data they have about you to billboards and other IRL advertisements. Think about how creepy it is when Facebook knows too much about you.

Now imagine how it would feel if a giant flat-screen at the mall showed you that same information in giant text that other people probably aren’t looking at, but definitely could read if it caught their eye.

If your regular ol' Tinder profile pic isn't getting enough people to swipe right, now you can replace it with a GIF.

It feels like every day, I see another person realising how little privacy they have online and saying “enough.” Upset about the state of our relationship to tech companies, they’re quitting Facebook and Twitter, avoiding Amazon, and giving up Google.

Almost everyone loves listening to podcasts. Nobody, however, loves picking out an app to be their podcast listening hub. Since we last got the lay of the podcast-app land in 2015, digital audio has become way more popular and, as a result, there are more podcast managers than ever out there. After testing just under 20 of the most popular podcast listening apps, I have a pair of definitive recommendations for what you should use to manage podcasts on your iPhone and/or iPad.

As a former Android user, the switch I made to iPhone about five years ago changed my life. The stable and you-know-what-you-get model Apple runs on was a refreshing change for me, and I haven’t looked back since.

But a recent fling with the Google Pixel 3 XL made my heart flutter for a number of reasons.

It's not a stretch to say the App Store changed the way people purchased apps for mobile devices. Back before the iPhone, mobile devices, such as those running Windows Mobile (and its many predecessors) and Palm OS went directly to developer sites to download installers that were then used to load apps onto devices. It was a mess, updates were tricky and there was no real oversight that the apps were safe. The App Store changed that. But it's also a closed environment that Apple has fought to maintain. That control is being debated in the US Supreme Court and Apple seems to have a fight on its hands.

Touch interfaces, driven by multi-touch displays, have revolutionised the way we interact with our devices. But many features are now harder to find. The combination of taps, tap-holds, Force Touch, swipes, pinches and other gestures have resulted in innovative functions that rarely get used.

With that in mind, here are five of my favourite iPhone tweaks that you should definitely take the time to master.

What do you look for first when picking out a new smartphone? Android or iOS? The processor chip inside? The size and resolution of the screen? How many cameras? You probably have your spec of choice, but don't sleep on these less-considered differences.