Not to make a big thing out of this, but there’s a new security update lurking on your iPhone, and you might want to give it an install. It’s designed to stop a new malware virus that’s roaming around at the moment, remotely jailbreaking people’s phones and performing “electronic eavesdropping,” which would be a pretty rough scene for anyone who stores their precious secrets in their digital eaves.
The story behind the discovery of the virus is actually pretty interesting—it involves a human rights activist, a group of hard-working watchdogs, and a potential international government conspiracy. (You can read about it here.) But if we’re being honest, we’re having way more fun today with all the headlines screaming at people to get this critical issue fixed, RIGHT NOW. (Apple didn’t make the update mandatory, for whatever reason, hence the journalistic clarion call.)
Some outlets went informative with their approach to the issue, like “Why You Should Update Your iPhone Immediately” or “Why You Need To Update Your iPhone Right Now”. Others chose to emphasize the magnitude of the threat: “APPLE EMERGENCY: You Need To Update Your iPhone RIGHT NOW Or Run The Risk Of A Devastating Hack Attack,” “Update your iPhone to avoid this massive security flaw.” But our favorites are those writers who realized the true magnitude of this online health crisis, thus forgoing all but the most necessary of words: “Update Your iPhone Right Now,” for instance, or the slightly more polite “You should update your iPhone right now”, or the short, sweet, and stern “Update Your iPhone Now.” Really, we only wish writers had been willing to get even more direct with their warnings: “Panic! Panic! iPhone!”, maybe, or “YOUR IPHONE IS TRYING TO KILL YOU,” or maybe just “Fuck, dude, your phone!”
Anyway, yeah, you should probably update your phones.