Big news for lovers of the iPhone SE, a franken-gadget made of old Apple parts and billed as a more affordable iOS device: It appears that the budget iPhone lineup is finally going to get its first refresh two years after the original model hit the market. The announcement could come as early as WWDC in June. In fact, Apple might be announcing several new iPhones.

If you're planning to upgrade your Apple gear, eBay has some good news for you: the online marketplace has slashed the price of select Apple products by a cool 20 per cent - including already-discounted items! Most also come with free postage. Here are the best deals.

Your iPhone's number pad is chiefly designed for making phone calls. However, it can also be used to input a handful of special codes that unlock extra features. Some are useful for everybody - such as showing exact signal strength - while others are handy for specific types of users - like displaying your call forwarding status. Here are six "hidden" codes that are worth checking out.

If you're in the market for a new smartphone then you're naturally going to want to look up key details such as processor speed, RAM, storage space, battery size and the camera's megapixel rating, but weighing up these raw specifications is increasingly becoming a waste of time. Here's why.

Steve Jobs was a notorious case-hater. He once looked at Wired's Steven Levy with disgust when the journalist pulled out an iPod with a case on it. "I think stainless steel looks beautiful when it wears," Jobs said. For my own reasons, I've never used a case on my iPhone. The glass on my $1600 iPhone X, however, does not look beautiful when it wears. And let me tell you, it wears way too easily.

Do you remember the good old days when phone plans came with a free phone to use with them? A belt holster too, if you were lucky.

Well, if you were born after 1990 then you may not remember this. It’s been a while since we didn’t have to pay an extra handset fee on top of the plan price. Though if you look hard enough, there are still a few handsets you can nab for no extra payments on a two-year plan.

If you've just put down hundreds of dollars in exchange for a polished new gadget, than you want that money to go as far as possible - which means making sure that your device of choice enjoys a long and healthy existence before it heads off for recycling many years down the line.

OK, look. I'm not the first person to say this, and I certainly won't be the last. But iOS 11 is bad. The new operating system has turned my phone into a bug-infested carcass of its former self, and the frustration of trying to use it sometimes makes me want to die, too.

Apple has been well known for its fervent attention to detail and desire to maintain secrecy. What some see as a carefully protected and tightly integrated array of products and services - a walled garden - others see as a boring monotone where everything is controlled.

That was evident when, earlier this week, Apple fired an engineer from their iPhone X team after his daughter posted a couple of minutes of video of the iPhone X from Caffe Macs at Apple's Infinite Loop campus. Was this an isolated incident or is Apple a glossy totalitarian state run by an outwardly benevolent dictator?

Today, the Apple iPhone 8 officially went on sale in Australia. If you're planning to snap the device up on a mobile phone plan from Telstra, Optus, Vodafone or Virgin Mobile, here's every plan for your consideration.

Brief news items of note for Lifehacker readers, including: there's more Mini SNES stock in Australia, what's your favourite memory from Firefly?

Apple's new iPhones are now available on pre-sale from most Australian telcos. Here are the full range of plans for Telstra customers.

Apple's new iPhones are now available on pre-sale from most Australian telcos. Here are the full range of plans for Optus customers.

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.

Remember 2009? Remember when every house party was 10 drunk-ass dudes, brand new iPhones in hand, swinging that goddamn lightsabre app, breaking lampshades and spilling beers.

“Whoom”

“Whoom”

“Whoom”

Remember that? I certainly do. I was one of those idiots.

In just a few hours' time, Apple will finally lift the lid on its new iPhone devices, including the mysterious iPhone X. If you're keen to follow the action from home, you can watch a live stream of the iPhone 8 launch right here.

How much would you be willing to pay for the iPhone 8? WhistleOut surveyed 1000 Aussies to work out an average price we'd think to be reasonable - and it falls just a bit (okay, a lot) short of the anticipated $1,500 price tag. $920, on average, is what we'd be happy to pay for the new model - $580 less than the expected retail price.

Sometime around 2011 or 2012, it suddenly became very easy to predict what people would be doing in public places: Most would be looking down at their phones.

For years, mobile phones weren’t much to look at. The screens were small, and users needed to press the same key several times to type a single letter in a text. Then, 10 years ago – on June 29, 2007 – Apple released the first iPhone.

The OnePlus employees seemed a little annoyed when I asked how they felt about people comparing its new device to an iPhone. Sure, both phones feature dual camera designs. Yes, the OnePlus 5 has curves that look a lot like an Apple product. Ugh, fine, it's a really good phone, too. What's the big deal?