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Mar 15

Things to do if your iPhone is stolen or lost

Losing or having an iPhone stolen is an unpleasant experience that no one wants to go through. Aside from the confusion and despair that comes with losing a phone, there are also the ramifications of losing data and security, the possibility of identity theft, and the price of buying a new phone.

However, if your iPhone is lost or stolen, you are not powerless. There are a few things you can attempt to locate and retrieve your smartphone, or at the very least, preserve your data and information. There are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to coping with a misplaced iPhone.

Things to Do if  your iPhone is stolen or lost

  • Locate your iPhone using the Find My iPhone app.

When your iPhone is lost or stolen, using the Find My app to locate it is your first line of defense. Go to iCloud.com/find or utilize the Find My app on another Apple device. You can identify your iPhone’s approximate position and flag it as lost.

This will lock your iPhone with a password and monitor its position from afar. It will also disable the ability to utilize Apple Pay to make payments, which is beneficial if you have credit or debit card information stored on your iPhone.

  • Notify local legal authorities right away if you’ve lost anything.

    Regardless of whether your phone was stolen or not, you must report it to the local station and submit a police complaint. Police would submit a “lost property” report for non-criminal losses. Device identifiers such as build, model, ESN/PIN, serial number, and other identifying features are often requested by law enforcement authorities, so make sure you have these on hand.

    In most situations, police reports favor the victim for insurance reasons if there are no solid leads or physical proof. Nonetheless, without contacting the criminal or illegal user, this is the best line of action.
  • Notify your wireless provider of your loss.

    Whether you acquired your iPhone via a cellular carrier plan, you must notify your carrier of the loss. To prevent unwanted messages, calls, or data using your cell number, your carrier might restrict or deactivate your account. This makes it impossible for a criminal or unauthorized user to impersonate you and contact your friends and family.
  • Remove your payment card information from the equation.

    To extort money from their victims, many thieves who steal iPhones seek their victims’ financial information. When you’ve lost or had your iPhone stolen, one of your first objectives should be to delete all of your stored bank and card information.
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When you designate your iPhone as lost in the Find My app, Apple Pay’s payment functionalities are instantly disabled. You may also ensure that fraudulent card activity is prevented by deleting all of your cards from Apple Pay and Wallet through iCloud.

  • Log out of all of your accounts and reset your passwords as soon as possible.

    In addition to safeguarding your financial information, you should also protect your personal accounts, such as your email and social media accounts, to avoid being a victim of identity theft.

To avoid being locked out of your account, change your passwords right away. You may log out of all your devices, including your lost iPhone, on several websites.

Things to NOT TO DO if your iPhone is stolen or lost

  • Allow yourself to fall apart.


We all know how painful it is to lose a phone. All of the implications of losing a phone are devastating to anybody who has gone through it, but getting your iPhone back will need you to be psychologically present and vigilant.

Feel whatever you need to feel, but don’t allow your emotions to get in the way of your job.

  • Attempt to recover your iPhone on your own.


If you could track down your iPhone at a location other than where you misplaced it, don’t go there by yourself. You’re merely exposing yourself to undue danger in exchange for a lead that doesn’t ensure you’ll get your gadget back.


Seek assistance from the authorities in your area. You may update the officer on any new information to aid their investigation, but your physical participation should cease after the police report is filed. Be cautious, but not too so, and don’t go about confronting anyone you suspect of holding your iPhone.

  • Make interaction with the user who is not permitted.

    If the unauthorized user contacts you or your loved ones, do not participate in dialogue or negotiation with them, particularly if they attempt to extract a monetary incentive to return your iPhone.

If someone tries to bargain anything out of a situation like this, they are probably not acting in your best interests. More importantly, never agree to meet with the individual alone while obtaining your equipment.

  • Click on any link that requires your credentials.

    One of the most prevalent methods is to send legitimate-looking SMS or emails to your contacts, claiming that your device has been found and that you must click a link and enter your Apple ID and password to retrieve it.

    The catch is that when your iPhone is stolen or found, Apple does not send you a text message. Only use official Apple websites to enter your account details.
Computer with warning pop up sign window
  • Irrationally delete your iPhone from your Apple ID.

    Erasing your iPhone should only be used as a last option, and only if you’re just interested in safeguarding your data and no longer want to recover your iPhone.

When you erase your iPhone, you are erasing all of the data on the device. This also implies that the Find My app will no longer track the device. Only wipe your iPhone if you’re very convinced you’re ready to let go of it.

Conclusion

If your phone has vanished and you haven’t been able to locate it using GPS or lock it, you’re unlikely to recover it. If this is the case, you should tell the persons in your address book and email accounts. Do you have any additional suggestions for what to do if your iPhone is stolen? What other advice do you have for keeping your smartphone safe? Please share them with us in the comments section below.

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Feb 26

Guide to enable or disable random MAC addresses on smartphones

A MAC address, or media access control address, is a one-of-a-kind identification for a device’s network interface card or a network adapter. It’s a 12-digit hexadecimal number with colons or hyphens separating every two digits. Consider the following scenario: 4c:0d:54:05:88:c9.

When searching for new networks, Android 8.0 introduces the usage of randomized MAC addresses instead of the smartphone’s network adapter’s burned-in or physical address. The MAC randomization for Wi-Fi connections was later increased in Android 10 in 2019. Since 2014, iOS has had a comparable function.

Using a random MAC address has both advantages and disadvantages. Here’s how to use your smartphone to activate or disable randomized MAC addresses.

How to Enable/Disable Random MAC Addresses for Individual Network Connections

The random MAC address functionality is enabled by default in many operating systems that support it. The following are the locations where you may locate the settings in various operating systems:

To Enable/Disable MAC randomization on Android devices, follow these steps.

  • Open the Settings
  • Tap Connections -> Wi-Fi
  • Select the three-dot symbol that corresponds to your network
  • Tap View more
  • Tap Mac Address Type -> Randomize or Phone Mac
  • Join the network again.

To Enable/Disable MAC Randomization on iOS Devices:

  • To turn off MAC randomization on iOS devices, go to Settings > General > MAC Randomization.
  • On your iPhone, iPad, or iPod, go to Settings, then Wi-Fi or WLAN.
  • Next to your network, tap the information icon.
  • Turn off the Private Address feature.
  • Join the network again.

How to Make Random MAC Addresses Disabled by Default

Whether you don’t like the randomized MAC address behavior that is enabled by default in Android, check the Developer Options to see if there’s a feature flag called settings wifi mac randomization that you can turn off. When using Developer Options, be cautious when using experimental features.

There doesn’t seem to be a comparable app for iOS.

Why is it necessary to enable random MAC addresses?

A random MAC address is used to increase your privacy and security by preventing you from being tracked across several Wi-Fi networks. A network bad actor will have a hard time properly linking records of actions to your devices that employ MAC randomization, which will improve your privacy. When executing Wi-Fi scanning, peer-to-peer data transfers, and other operations, Apple actively uses MAC address randomization to improve user privacy.

The initial MAC address, often known as the factory MAC address, is not a random sequence of alphanumeric characters. In MAC addresses, each hardware manufacturer has its own prefix. If a network adapter’s MAC address begins with F8:27:93, for example, it belongs to Apple Inc. Multiple prefixes are possible for certain businesses. The vendor may be identified using the MAC address prefix code utilizing internet resources

As a result, hiding the actual MAC address may help protect your device from being exposed to malicious actors. Identifying the MAC address, as well as other network characteristics, might lead to the device’s identification with the correct tools.

Why Is Random MAC Address Disabled?

MAC address randomization should be enabled because of the benefits it gives in terms of privacy and security. However, there are times when doing the opposite is the better and more practical alternative.

Randomizing MAC addresses in a private home and business networks may seem redundant since it is assumed that all connected devices in the network are known and trustworthy. The functionality may be the reason for devices being unable to stay connected to the network, necessitating its disabling.

If you know how the network was set up, keep in mind if static addresses or MAC address filtering were used. If that’s the case, you’ll only be able to connect if you use a whitelisted set of known MAC addresses, which implies that changing your MAC address will prohibit you from joining. Randomizing, on the other hand, might be advantageous if the network has a blacklist.

Random MAC addresses also don’t function well in captive portal networks. These are networks that are often found in hotels, airports, and cafés that route newly connected users to a web page that requires authentication before they may access the Internet. MAC addresses are also used by these networks to remember clients who have previously been authenticated.

Conclusion

This is a must-have feature for anybody who cares about mobile security. The developers, however, chose to make the randomized MAC address option the default for wireless connections to enjoy an extra degree of protection; make sure your Android smartphone is utilizing this function for each WiFi network you connect to. If you have any thoughts, Let us know in the comments below!

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Feb 14

What to do when your smartphone freezes

When your phone becomes unresponsive, it may be aggravating to have your job or routine disturbed. However, you should wait a bit to see whether whatever is causing the smartphone to freeze will go away on its own.

When running resource-intensive applications, keep in mind that smartphones with older components or entry-level hardware may have poor performance. Operations and tasks may take some time to complete, and the phone may periodically freeze during this time.

Considering our cellphones have evolved into that little pocket utility that does a variety of functions – including work and entertainment – having your device break down may be distressing. Do not be alarmed if your smartphone becomes unresponsive or freezes while you are using it. As this article explains, there are many straightforward solutions to repair a frozen phone. To get your gadget back on track, try them individually.

Ways to fix when your smartphone freezes 

1. Forced restart

It’s likely that your phone isn’t responding to any taps on the screen or physical button presses at all, and not just the active app. You have to force the phone to restart.

The best way to do this on Android phones is to hold the power button for 30 seconds. If that doesn’t work, hold down the power and volume down buttons on the phone until the screen turns black. Turn it back on.

This is how to do a forced reboot on the most recent iPhone models. First, press and quickly release the Volume Up and Volume Down buttons. Then, press and hold the Side button. Keep holding the side button until the Apple logo comes up on the screen.

As long as you don’t restart your phone, you can go on with your day. Make it a habit to restart your phone at least once a week, but don’t do it in a forced way.

2. Back up your files.

When the problem keeps happening, you need to do more troubleshooting. If you haven’t done it in a while, now might be a good time to make a backup so that important data won’t be lost when you try to solve the freeze problem.

3. Keep your apps and OS up to date.

Having an unstable version of apps and the operating system could be the reason for a smartphone that sometimes stops working or doesn’t work at all. Check the app store to see if there are newer versions of your apps and OS. It’s not just new features that are added in updates. They usually include fixes to make the app run better and be more stable.

4. Free up space

Google says that if your smartphone only has 10% free space left in its storage, it might not work well. It might be a good idea to remove apps that you don’t use. Another option is to add more space to your phone through the microSD slot if it has one. You can move some of your apps to the microSD card.

5. Disable or remove apps

Unexpected freezes may be caused by a certain app. To figure out which app it is, try disabling or even uninstalling the apps one at a time to see which one works. Every time you disable or remove one, restart your phone and see if the problem no longer happens. The most recent app you’ve downloaded should be your first choice.

6. Factory reset your phone or tablet.

It may be the only option if your phone doesn’t work even when it’s in safe mode. You might have to either reset your phone or get professional help.

Most of the time, resetting your phone may help you get it back to normal. However, you’ll lose all your files, apps, games, photos, videos, and everything else. Make sure you back up your device properly before you start this process.

Take these steps to reset your phone:

  • When you open the Settings app, click on it.
  • Then, click on the button that says “Select Reset.”
  • Tap Erase all data to get rid of all of it (factory reset)
  • Then, click the button next to it that says “ERASE ALL DATA.”
  • Wait for your device to restart after you confirm your password.

7. Seek the help of an expert.

This is the last way to get your phone out of its frozen state. You can go to the official customer service center for your phone brand to get help. In this case, it might be a hardware-related problem or something else that needs to be fixed by a professional.

When your own efforts to fix the problem don’t work, or if the real problem is with the phone’s hardware, it’s time to call in a professional to help you. Contact your phone’s manufacturer or a repair service that is approved by them.

Conclusion

In the end, no technology is perfect. Even the most up-to-date gadgets might freeze from time to time. The only thing to keep an eye on is if one or a few apps are causing the problem. Getting rid of them or other unnecessary apps can help. If you have any suggestions, let us know in the comments below!

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Jan 29

How Much RAM Does My Smartphone Really Need?

Any smartphone buying guide will tell you that the amount of RAM in a smartphone is an essential aspect in determining if the phone is worth purchasing. When it comes to RAM, like with other phone characteristics, more is better. But how much RAM should you acquire for your phone?

What exactly is RAM?

RAM is an abbreviation for random access memory. It stores data in conjunction with your phone’s storage. However, although the phone storage (i.e., internal storage and the microSD card) serves as a container for durable data, RAM serves as a container for transient data that must be accessed at a much quicker pace.

If a smartphone anticipates that information will be required more often in the near future, it saves it in RAM. This includes any applications you’ve launched. This is why you can return to a previously used app and continue using it without having to reload it.

How Much RAM Do You Really Need?

The answer to this question differs from person to person. Some smartphone users merely perform light surfing, messaging, calling, and video streaming, which does not need a large amount of RAM. Meanwhile, other users engage in mobile gaming and video editing, which need additional RAM.

Let’s look at some of the most popular smartphone activities to help you determine how much RAM you need:

  • Depending on use, social media apps such as Facebook and Instagram may consume anywhere from 100 to 300MB of RAM.
  • Browsers and video players, such as Chrome and YouTube, each require roughly 500MB, depending on how many tabs are open and the quality of the video being viewed.
  • The visual quality of mobile games varies dramatically depending on whether you play online or offline. While operating, games like MOBA’s for Android may use more than 1GB of RAM.
  • Keep in mind that you must also include the RAM used by your operating system. From this perspective, it’s easy to understand why some cellphone businesses provide 6GB, 8GB, and even 12GB of memory.

These days, it seems that 4GB of RAM is the recommended amount of RAM for a smartphone. However, the correct answer is case-by-case, since customers’ demands and desires for their devices differ. Mobile gamers will demand more, although casual users who do a little online browsing and streaming video will be OK with less.

You should select a phone with greater RAM as long as it is within your budget. Over time, new versions of your applications will be released, as well as important operating system upgrades that will need additional memory, and your phone will continue to perform smoothly as a result of your hardware investment.

How to Check Your Smartphone’s RAM Usage

To understand how much RAM you need for your smartphone, analyze how much memory you are presently consuming. To do this, take these steps:

For: Android

  • Navigate to the Settings menu. Select Device Care or Device Maintenance from the drop-down menus (varies by model).
  • Click Memory. You can check the overall amount of RAM on your phone, as well as how much is presently being utilized by the applications and services that are now operating, from this screen.
  • Before proceeding with the previous two steps, you may need to activate Developer Options on certain phone models. To do so, go to Settings > About. Before entering your PIN, scroll down and press on the Build Number seven times.

For: IOS

  • Go to Settings > General
  • Tap iPhone Storage to show the amount of available and utilized memory, as well as a breakdown of which applications are utilizing your RAM.

Conclusion

The answer to the question of how much RAM a smartphone need differs from person to person. Because we all have various needs and objectives for our cellphones, you may require as little as 2GB or as much as 12GB. Overall, the best thing to do is dedicate some more RAM to guarantee that your smartphone functions well even when the next major update arrives. If you have any questions let us know in the comments below! 

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Jan 16

OEM Unlock: Things You Need To Know

Have you ever wondered what OEM unlock is and why you should activate it on your Android device? Here’s a rundown of what OEM unlocking your device entails, why you may need it, and how you can accomplish it in minutes on any Android phone or tablet.

The potential of an Android smartphone is vast, yet the device’s manufacturer constrains it. They use a software switch to restrict the device’s capability. This is done to prevent users from messing up their devices unintentionally. What if a user wishes to go above these bounds on purpose? OEM Unlocking is helpful in this situation.

What is OEM Unlock?

When you turn on the OEM Unlock Android option, the “unlock ability” flag is set to “1.” Even if you reboot your device or conduct a factory reset, this flag stays. Unless you turn it off manually, this option will remain active. The OEM Unlock option is usually concealed in Android devices to avoid accidental access.

Why enable OEM unlock?


For the most part, Google does not try to keep many things from you. Because the company has supported the OEM unlock hidden, you must understand that it has a good purpose. The main job of a locked bootloader is to check the software’s signature every time the phone starts up. There are many ways to do things like rooting your phone or installing a different operating system if you remove the lock on the bootloader.

Unlocking the bootloader is the first step to rooting your Android device or installing a newer, custom firmware on a device that’s been around for a long time. The first step is to unlock the bootloader, which means you can become a superuser, flash a custom ROM, change the kernel, or install modules to improve your experience. There are two ways to unlock the device’s bootloader: one is by clicking on “OEM unlock” in “Developer Options.” The other way is to use a third-party recovery like TWRP.

How to Enable OEM Unlock Android Devices?

  • Step 1: Create a backup of your Android device.

It is essential to back up your phone completely, including its apps, messages, contacts, and internal storage. While enabling OEM unlocking itself wouldn’t delete any of the data on your phone, it wouldn’t be able to. You’ll likely go on and unlock the bootloader, which will wipe all of your data.

  • Step 2: Turn on Android’s “Developer Options”.

When you open the “Developer options” menu, you won’t see the option or switch. If you want to be able to unlock your phone so that another person can use it, you first need to find or turn on the phone’s “Developer Options.”

  1. Take a look at the app drawer. Click on “Settings.”
  2. Find “System” at the bottom of the page. If your phone has Android Nougat or below, look for “About phone.”
  3. Take a look at the “About phone” part. You will then be able to see things like the Android version, the security patch level, and more.
  4. Find the “Build number.”
  5. Tap “Build number” seven times quickly. In the event that you have a PIN or Password set, you will be asked to enter it.
  6. Then you will see a message at the bottom of your screen that says, “You’re now a developer!”
  7. Go back to the “System” part. On Android Nougat and below, you can just go back to the main settings and do the same thing again.

You will see a new section called “Developer options” when you open the app.

You can now follow the steps below to make your Android phone or tablet work with other phones.

  • Step 3: Turn on OEM Unlocking (OEM Unlock) on your Android.
  1. Go to “Settings.” Then, tap on “System,” and you’ll get to the system.
  2. Take a look at “Developer options.”
  3. Down below, you’ll see “OEM unlocking.” Click on it.
  4. Turn on Android’s “OEM Unlocking.”
  5. Tap on the toggle next to it to turn it on. It doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve set up a password or PIN.
  6. You will be asked if you want to go ahead with the process, so press “Enable.”

OEM Unlock and Sim Unlock

This is even if you’re a big fan of Android. Even if you know a lot about Android, chances are you haven’t heard of, or had to learn about, terms like SIM unlock, or bootloader unlocks. In reality, only a few people will ever want to root their phones to make them more fun to use. For example, rooting was used to improve the user experience in the past. Because new smartphones have high-end processors that don’t seem to slow down, most people don’t need rooting now.

Make sense of it: If you want to root your Android device or run your own ROM on it, unlocking the OEM is what you need to do. As a result, this has nothing to do with how well your cell phone or computer works. This will help you switch SIM cards and start using different networks if you already have a carrier-locked phone. To do so, you will need to have your device’s SIM card unlocked either by the network provider or by a trusted third-party service.

Conclusion

A billion or more devices could run the best and most up-to-date Android OS today. As long as you know what “OEM unlock” is and how to use it correctly, you can get a lot more than you can with the mobile OS from Google.

Are you one of the people who always try to figure out how to use their mobile devices in new ways, or would you rather keep things as they are? Don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comment box down below.

Can we unlock your phone? Start here!

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