The setting that every parent who has an iPhone needs to know

I discovered this setting while listening to the Mac Power Users podcast. One of the hosts referenced “guided access” in the context of controlling how someone else could use your iPhone. I was intrigued with the concept and looked it up.

BOOM! Exactly what I have been looking for:

Guided Access is a setting that keeps the user (in my case, my 2 1/2 year old son) in one application and one application only. The only way to get out of the application is to triple click the home button and enter a passcode. The effect is when I let my son play Angry Birds, he is only going to play Angry Birds and not change setting or move around or delete applications.

You can use Guided Access to:

  • Temporarily restrict your iOS device to a particular app
  • Disable areas of the screen that aren’t relevant to a task, or areas where an accidental gesture might cause a distraction
  • Disable the hardware buttons

Set up

The settings trail you need to follow is:

Settings > General > Accessibility > Guided Access to set up Guided Access. From there you can:

  • Turn Guided Access on or off
  • Set a passcode that controls the use of Guided Access and prevents someone from leaving an active session
  • Set whether the device can go to sleep during a session

Below are screen shots of the settings you need to work through to get to Guided Access.

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Posted by Shawn Roberts

On this blog, I write about and try to answer practical Oklahoma legal questions. My focus and most experience is in estate planning and business issues including Oklahoma non-compete law. I make a living as an attorney in the law firm I founded, Shawn J. Roberts, P.C. in Oklahoma City. I live in Edmond with my wife Amy and my two children, Sam (19) and David (11). We live precisely in the path of where the "wind comes sweeping down the plains."