Hidden Apps and the End of the World

Sometimes I wake up and look at the news and wonder if I’m still sleeping, lost in either a Groundhog Day dream or nightmare……. Some politician did something shady, someone’s killing someone in the middle east, a CEO has bought a yacht that costs more than Kate, myself, and all our kids and grandkids will likely ever earn combined, somebody killed a crap shooter cause he didn’t lie, a starlette with great boobs has a new *scandalous* pic showing off her great boobs, a new lower price on a portable monitor in the Tik Tok shop. On and on and on and on……

And then, a steady drumbeat starting yesterday afternoon, something new and original…

In something that’s never ever happened a single time in the history of the world, people started cheating on their spouses. Apple updated it’s iPhone software, and as a result, cheating is now a possibility.

Apple has done what Apple has a tendency to do: they stole a feature that’s been on Android since roughly the late 1950’s. You can now hide access to an app on your iPhone. Of all the shitshow dumpster fires we’ve bore witness to since 2020 rolled around, it seems this may well be the most significant. Someone call R.E.M., they need to update the lyrics to “It’s the End of the World as We Know it (And I feel Fine).

According to some of the breathless media, the sole possible use for such a feature is to hide the Ashley Madison app from your spouse.

As people who hand phones and tablets to grandkids on the reg, Kate and I are fans of now having a simple way to restrict access to various things. We’ve not experienced the horror of a Pornhub playlist popping up instead of Miss Rachel or Roblox; this seems to help keep that possibility at bay.

Speaking of phone privacy, here’s a tip; be VERY mindful about who has access to a device that’s logged into your AppleID ….here’s a snippet of an exchange one of our (adult) kids had upon seeing a pic of a topless Kate having shibari work being performed on her while we were in Mexico “that’s my mom….that’s not my stepdad”….funny story now, 100% an oh shit thing in the moment.

If you’re worried about cheating, perhaps try being honest and open with your significant other about what you want, need, and desire; give them safe space to do the same. Scary stuff, believe me, I know. I also know what’s possible on the other side of that conversation.

Imagine how much better a relationship can be when you’re working together towards something as opposed to worrying if your spouse is hiding an app, or if you need to.

Thanks for reading!! Be kind to yourself and others,

Sam & Kate

(Kate and I (Sam) are a married couple in our 50’s whose relationship is Ethically Non-Monogamous (ENM). We’re swingers, our marriage is open; we have sex with other people. We’re in a committed relationship, and somewhere on the polyamorous spectrum; Kate has a boyfriend and is a Hotwife. It’s neither of our first marriages. We met in an AA meeting; we’re each more than a decade sober now. If you’re curious about how this all works, we talk about our relationship in varying degrees of depth in other posts. We have an email address listed in our “about” page if you like to contact us.)