A man is going viral on TikTok after making the bold claim that iPhone users can track who misses them.
In the text overlay of his clip, Nate Limón (@saturnasafather) said there’s an iPhone hack available to let users see who’s looking at old pictures of you or re-reading your text exchanges.
“Apple snitches,” he said. “If you have the little photo widget, then they will pop up. That means they’ve been looking at your stuff.”
As of Sunday, Limón’s video showcasing this so-called hack had amassed more than 1.3 million views.
What is the Photos widget?
Since the iOS14 update, Apple has enabled new widgets that can be used on the home screen of iPhones and iPads. With these, Apple users can customize the look of their home screens—with hundreds of options to choose from.
But one popular widget is the Photos one, which displays pictures from your library onto your home screen.
To add this to your home screen, press and hold a blank spot on your screen until the icons wiggle. Then, press the plus sign that will appear on the top left to open the widget gallery and select the Photos widget.
There’s no evidence that you can see who misses you
According to MacRumors, users who add the photo widget to their devices will then have a rotating picture from their library displayed. In other words, the photos you see are seemingly randomized. If you want to display a fixed photo or rotate through a selection of specific photos, you will need to download a third-party app.
So, the photos you see daily don’t provide any information about who’s re-reading your messages or staring at your old pictures. The widget simply displays a recent photo from your photo album and is not meant to reveal anything specific.
To see if someone has read a recent message, you’ll have to do so the old-fashioned way—by updating your phone’s “read receipt” status on the iMessage app.
@saturnasafather ♬ original sound – 🧿nate michael limón 🧿
Some viewers still buy Apple widget theory
In the comments section of Limón’s video, several users suggested that they believed his Apple “hack”—despite there being no available evidence that it’s true.
“My son passed away and he is always there,” one woman said. “Thank you Apple for connecting me to Heaven.”
“I want to say I’m not this delusional anymore but… I began to wonder,” another quipped.
“That makes sense why it’s always different pictures of the same person,” a third woman said.
“So my ex… great,” a fourth viewer said, clearly disappointed.
Others, however, were quick to throw a cold bucket of water on the content creator’s theory.
“As a person who works with Apple products I can confirm that the photo widget are randomly generated,” one woman said.
“No my friend told me the other day I was on hers and I didn’t look at anything of hers,” another shared.
“So my daughter (with no phone) has been creepin?” a third person questioned.
“My dogs and Taylor Swift be STALKING me,” a fourth viewer quipped.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Limón via TikTok comment and to Apple through email.
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