Our iPhones can be very mysterious creatures. Despite us using them every day, there are so many features that we’ve probably never come across. So what do we do with these features we never use?
We prank our friends, of course!
Here are the top six ways to prank our friends on the iPhone, using their own iPhones. We’ve also thrown in a bonus in case you can’t get your paws on your friends’ iPhones — it’s been personally proven to work by our writer Delfina (you’re a good sport, Delfina!).
1. Enable Restrictions
What would drive your friends more bonkers than not being able to use certain apps? With restrictions — which are basically meant to make a phone child-safe — you can lock your friends out of certain parts of their phone using a specific passcode. Just go to Settings > General > Restrictions, type in a unique passcode, and start picking parts of the phone you want to lock.
Sadly, there’s a limit to the apps you can close, but the app that would annoy them the most would have to be the camera app. Just switch that off, and the function will disappear from the phone completely!
2. Stalk
We all have those friends who, when they see you in public, will text you something creepy like “that ice cream looks delicious” or “hope you have fun shopping!” instead of walking up to you to say hi. But what would be even creepier is if that person could send you messages that actually made sense regardless of where you are.
To commit the creepiest prank possible, make use of Apple’s creepiest stock app: Find Friends. All you need is both yours and the phone of the friend you want to stalk. Go into their Find Friends app, approve the use of location services, and add yourself into that app to receive their location information. Unless they use the app often (which is unlikely), they won’t even realise that they’re sending you all this information.
I wouldn’t recommend using it more than once though — there are lines to draw in pranking too, you know.
3. Autocorrect
We all know that the annoying Autocorrect will change what you’re trying to say into something completely different. The best thing about this is that you can set the autocorrects that your friends will get.
Just go to Settings > General > Keyboard > Text Replacement, and add all the replacements you want. You can start small by just changing ‘no’ to ‘yes’ or ‘lol’ to ‘butts’, but the awesome thing about this prank is that you can tailor it to your friends.
If your friend is constantly texting his/her other half, you can maybe change “dear” to “butthead”, or “i love you” to “i love your sister”. Or if he/she’s a grammar nazi: “their” for “there”, “it’s” for “its”, and so on. Let your creativity run wild!
4. Speak Auto Text
Let’s admit it: we’ve been spoilt by Autocorrect. But what if Autocorrect was said out loud?
Just go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Speak Auto Text, and this will make your phone read out suggested words as you type, making any texting session a loud affair. It’s like having your own grammar nazi built into your phone, and if you manage turn it on on your friend’s phone without them noticing, you can be sure they will be driven up the wall by their strange talking iPhone.
5. Guided Access
This is probably one of the most popular pranks, and that’s because it’s so simple to implement. Just go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Guided Access, and turn it on.
Then, go into any app of your choice, and triple-click the home button. This will bring up a prompt for you to select a part of the screen you want to block off — you can choose to block off the whole screen if you want. So the next time your friend wakes up their phone, they won’t be able to leave that app or even use it.
6. The Power Of Accessibility
Nothing quite screams a broken iPhone screen like colours that are all wrong. Simply go to Settings > General > Accessibility, and you get a plethora of ways to change the way your display works. For a warped experience, turn on Invert Colours, or get rid of colours completely by turning on Grayscale. Or, if you want to make fun of your friend’s eyesight, turn on Zoom to put a massive magnifying glass on the screen, or turn on Larger Text to make the text on the phone huge.
Alternatively, do them all at the same time, and when your friend freaks out over how weird their phone is, just tell them that it’s broken. Poor iPhone.
Bonus: ScaryCam
If you don’t have access to your friends’ phones, try pranking them with your own phone instead! This app, ScaryCam, disguises an elaborate prank in the form of an idiot test. After you’ve opened the test, pass it to your friend and tell them to get through this seemingly easy game. Halfway through the game, they’ll be in for a huge scare, as a scary gremlin will pop out to interrupt the game.
The best thing about this ‘test’ is its inbuilt recording function that will record the player’s reaction while they are getting pranked. Just download it after, and hello Facebook!
