iOS 7 Waterproof Hoax Expands With "AirDrop Protection"

This week a hoax was dropped by the likes of some as-yet-unknown graphic designer who had a hankering for some iOS 7 trickery. The first joke in this series consisted of a series of images that suggested an upgrade to iOS 7 would include full waterproofing of whatever device you bumped to the new operating system. Needless to say, those that believed in the hoax were sorely disappointed when they found their iPhones dead as a doornail under water.

Today another appearance of similar content has surfaced – another bit you'll want to warn your best and most gullible friends to watch out for. Here we're finding the term "AirDrop" being used as an inroad to suggest updating iOS 7 will come with full drop protection. The name "AirDrop" is used in reality for a wireless system for file transfers in iOS and OS X. Here you'll find a slightly more nefarious suggestion.

The above image is fake – it's certainly an image, but it's not really sourced from Apple. Apple did not make it, and you'll definitely not see any iOS 7 hardware damage protection appearing on your iPhone any time soon. While it would be pretty awesome for the iPhone's vibrate setting to be able to set the device upright while it falls to the ground, no such excellence exists.

Meanwhile you'll find quite a few things working just fine in our full iOS 7 review from launch earlier this month. This system is free to upgrade for all device that are capable of running it, and comes in the box for devices like the iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c.

You'll find users like Sidistic (oh the irony) proposing that the software update does, indeed work – just keep reminding yourself that no matter how much you want it to be true, the only thing that's protecting your iPhone from a shattery death is a case and a good helping of luck. Or a short fall rather than a long one, of course.