You don’t have to be reminded of the virtual and physical risks you face every day. Some of us are targeted more than others. Modern digital features built into mobile operating systems (and some computer operating systems) can help reduce our anxiety by putting more power in our hands to deter, deflect, block, and respond to abuse, threats, and emergencies.
Keep Safe Using Mobile Tech looks at both digital threats, like online abuse and account hijacking, and ones in the physical world, like being stalked through Bluetooth trackers, facing domestic violence, or being in a car crash. The book principally covers the iPhone, Apple Watch, Android devices, and Wear OS watches. It also covers more limited but useful features available on the iPad and on computers running macOS or Windows.
This second edition incorporates the massive number of new safety features Google added since October 2024 to the Android operating system, some particular to Google Pixel phones and smartwatches, and improved blocking, filtering, and screening added to Apple’s iOS 26 and related operating system updates in fall 2025.
This book explores many techniques to help:
- Learn how to harden your Apple Account, Google Account, and Microsoft Account beyond just a password or a text-message token.
- Discover filtering and blocking tools from Apple and Google that can prevent abusive, fraudulent, and phishing messages and calls from reaching you.
- Block seeing unwanted sensitive images on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, or Android phone—and help your kids receive advice on how not to send them.
- Turn on tracking on your Apple, Google, and Microsoft devices, and use it to recover or erase stolen hardware.
- Keep your cloud-archived messages from leaking to attackers.
- Screen calls with an automated assistant so that you know who wants you before picking up and without sending to voicemail.
- Lock down your devices to keep thieves and other personal invaders from accessing them.
- Prepare for emergencies by setting up medical information on your mobile devices.
- Let a supported smartphone or smartwatch recognize when you’re in a car crash or have taken a hard fall and call emergency services for you (and text your emergency contacts) if you can’t respond.
- Keep track of heart anomalies through smartwatch alerts and tests on your Apple Watch and many Android Wear smartwatches.
- Tell others where or when you expect to check in with them again, and let your smartphone alert them if you don’t with your Apple iPhone or Android phone.
- Deter stalking from tiny Bluetooth trackers.
- Protect your devices and accounts against access from domestic assailants.
- Block thieves who steal your phone—potentially threatening you or attacking you in person—from gaining access to the rest of your digital life.
Take Control Books Executive Editor Glenn Fleishman spent 30 years writing for publications like The Atlantic, Fast Company, The Economist, The New York Times, Macworld, and TidBITS. Glenn now focuses his time on Take Control Books, Six Colors (as a columnist), and his own micro-publishing endeavor, Aperiodical, where he writes books about type, printing, comics, and language history, like Six Centuries of Type & Printing and How Comics Are Made. You can find Glenn on Mastodon and Bluesky. Reach him by email at glenn@glennf.com.
What’s New in the Second Edition
When I wrote the first edition of this book, I thought we might see a long period with no changes, as Apple and Google—as the biggest drivers of change—seemed to have staked out their personal safety perimeters. I was wrong! In the last year, and particularly since September 2025, both companies have pushed out a number of significant improvements and new features that required a substantial revision to the book you have in your virtual hands.
Apple Updates
Apple added powerful features to help deter scammers and fraudsters from ever reaching you in September 2025, with different features available in their three main communications apps, FaceTime, Messages, and Phone. These updates came with the release that month of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 Tahoe, and watchOS 10.
Note: Apple has switched to using the same version number for all their operating systems, based on the last two digits of the following year—“26” for fall 2025 releases.
Here is a list of these new features, with a note in parentheses about which apps include them:
- Block spam calls (FaceTime, Phone): Incoming calls identified as fraudulent are blocked by default. See “Sort Unknown Callers with Apple.”
- Silence and filter unwanted calls (FaceTime, Phone): Incoming calls that aren’t from a known caller (contacts and previous calls) and haven’t been marked as spam are silenced and filtered. See “Sort Unknown Callers with Apple.”
- Screen and filter incoming text messages (Messages): Messages from unknown parties are filtered as unknown or spam. See “Filter Messages with Apple.”
- Deactivated links and phone numbers in spam texts (Messages): Any link or phone number is deactivated in a message filtered into the Spam category. This makes an accidental click less likely. See “Extra Protections in Spammy Texts.”
- Call Screening (Phone): If you enable Call Screening, unknown inbound callers don’t cause your Phone app to ring. Rather, they are asked by a machine-generated voice to provide their name and why they are calling. If they reply, this is transcribed and shown to you through a notification. See “Screen Calls with Apple.”
Also featuring in the fall 2025 updates for iPhone:
- Check In changes: Apple revised the Check In safety feature, adding a Workout category and more notifications when everything is OK. See “Check In with an iPhone.”
- Safety Check upgrades: iOS 26 has more information about what you’re sharing and with whom, including what you sharing publicly, in this feature designed to let you shut down some or all of your connections with others if you’re in danger. See “Perform a Safety Check (Apple).”
Note: After another year since the name Apple Account replaced the old Apple ID moniker for Apple ecosystem accounts, this revision removes all mentions of Apple ID, except to note this backward-looking fact.
Google Updates
Google didn’t sit still in this period, either. Since the last update to this book, Google has made a number of safety-related improvements:
- Sensitive content warnings: Google added sensitive content warnings to Google Messages in Android. See “Google Goes Global with Sensitive Content Warnings.”
- Call Screening: Some Google Pixel phone models have automatic and manual options for screening incoming calls to avoid unwanted ones. See “Listen in to Calls on Google Pixel.”
- Live Voicemail: Not yet released, Google reportedly has a Live Voicemail feature nearly ready. See “Listen to Voicemail Live with Google.”
- Message spam filtering: Google rolled out new scam-detecting features starting in October 2024 that could help dramatically block scams and spam, and alert you to potential risk. See “Filter Messages with Google.”
- Find Hub: Google quietly moved from branding their device and item tracking network as Find My Network to Find Hub in mid-2025. See “Find with Google.”
- SOS by satellite: On Google Pixel 9 and later phones and the Pixel Watch 4 (with LTE), you can place emergency services calls by satellite. See “Connect by Satellite with Google.”
- Theft protections: Google deployed a whole suite of options that will make a stolen Android phone dramatically less useful to a thief, protecting your data while also (hopefully) deterring robberies. See “Google Adds Stolen Device Protection.”
Other Updates
Companies other than Apple and Google have added or updated features, too! Here’s what you’ll find in this version:
- Direct to satellite: T-Mobile offers a direct-to-satellite service that can be useful in quasi-emergencies, when you don’t need emergency services but do need help. Supporting 60 phone models, it relies on the StarLink constellation of low-flying satellites. See “Connect Direct to Satellite.”
- Samsung watch fall detection: Samsung added fall detection to their various watch models. See “Samsung Watch Fall Detection.”
Posted by Joe Kissell on November 20, 2024
Glenn Fleishman joined host Chuck Joiner on MacVoices to talk about several of his latest updates.
In [part one](https://macvoices.com/macvoices-24260-keyboards-comics-and-taking-control-of-your-apple-account-with-glenn-fleishman-1/, Glenn covers some of his personal projects and talks about Take Control of Your Apple Account.
In part two, Glenn discusses Keep Safe Using Mobile Tech.
In part three, Glenn covers Take Control of Securing Your Apple Devices, Take Control of Find My and AirTags, and Take Control of FaceTime and Messages.
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