Burner Gives Your iPhone Disposable Numbers

Sharing your main number with unwanted parties can often be touchy, but carrying around a second phone just for a disposable number is also a pain. Burner is a new app that hopes to solve the problem, allowing users to create disposable phone numbers that can briefly be used for calls and texts. Users pay a small amount of money to buy credits from the company and are then able to buy numbers for different lengths of time, all accessible from the iPhone app while keeping their real phone number private.

The app itself costs $1.99, with credits starting at the same price, although buying in bulk will reduce the price dramatically. After users have installed the app and acquired credits, they can create a temporary number that they can use for a wide variety of uses. After that, a simple tap of the "Burn" button will permanently erase the number. Anyone trying to call it at that point will get an "out of service" message, and text messages won't make it through either.

You can have more than one burner number at a time as well, with the app allowing you to manage all your numbers and interactions. You don't get a large amount of minutes or texts for your money – 20 and 60 respectively for a "Mini Burner" – but they're not designed to be used as primary numbers.

Burner does have a strict policy, however, which means you won't be able to use the service for anything extremely shady or illegal. The company does keep backups of the data too for a short period of time, and if the Feds request any information via a warrant, the company will hand it over. Still, it's a good solution for those wanting to limit the spread of their phone number.

[via Ars Technica]