5 smart smartphone pranks just for April Fools’ Day

In the UK, April Fools' Day has been around since the 19th century and every April 1st, we play pranks and jokes on each other... until noon of course, otherwise you're the April Fool. However, over the years, our pranks have become bigger and a whole lot smarter. Take some of the fake Google videos you get on YouTube or those stunts you see in the paper.

With smartphones being on our person always, it's the one place people least expect you to prank them. So, how can you get in on the act this April Fools' Day and trick your friends and family with their smartphone.

Here's a few ideas:

1. The random Airdrop.

This one is a great proximity gag for those with iPhones. Simply find a suitable image in your phone's gallery or download one from the web (the weirder the better, although, check it's not inappropriate or sexually explicit), select the share icon on the bottom left and wait for available AirDrop contacts to appear at the top of the next menu. Slide the AirDrop menu to find your friend's phone and simply tap their face to send. All you have to do is wait to see the reaction on their face.

2. Frozen phone gag.

This one doesn't need any apps and is suitable for all phone types as it's just a speedy screengrab. To make the phone look frozen, simply screen grab a copy of their home screen and apply it as their phone background on all available home screens (this is when you swipe left on iPhone or Android). This will keep your April Fools tapping at apps and folders trying to open them for hours.

3. I'm still typing GIF

This one is annoying but it's one of our favourites. You can download and save the animation that appears on iPhone where it shows someone is typing within Messenger. You know... those little 3 animated dots that suddenly disappears with no message? Yeah! You can download the iPhone one here and simply reply to their text message by uploading this image. It will start to automatically animate!

4. Shortcut autocorrect lols.

Probably one of the most underused features of a smartphone so this one will bother them for a while! You can type in simple shortcuts into your keyboard settings on both Android and iPhone, meaning you can make typical words into something else. So, normally you'd shortcut something like BRB into be right back, but why not turn their most overused word into a lyric... like 'Hi' into 'There's something I need to tell you' or 'Too' to 'Two' to those grammar warriors.

5. An oldie but classic.

The language gag has been around since the Nokia 6210 but it still gets people every time. To do this you can get them in 2 ways... change the phone language within the phone's settings or remove the English language keyboard and install ones that are more difficult to identify... or if you want to really get them, you can swap it from a QWERTY keyboard to a QWERTZ keyboard, which is effectively a different layout to the standard English keyboard. You can do this within the keyboard settings.

It may be a classic gag, but it's quick, effective and unrecognisable for a little while in a lot of circumstances as well as difficult to reset back (so remember the steps if you need to help out).