How To Lock Your iPhone While Your Kid Uses An App

How To Lock Your iPhone While Your Kid Uses An App

Sometimes, our phones come in handy as tools of distraction for our kids while we wait in the airport or the doctor’s office. I rarely let my son use my phone when he was younger (and still rarely do), but I kept the PBS Kids app and one or two games loaded on it, just in case.

But what I’ve also got loaded on my phone is Amazon and Facebook and email and any number of things he could accidentally get into if he hit the home button or swiped up to open the command center.

I wish I’d known that there is a way to lock your iPhone on whatever app your kid is playing so they can’t mess around — accidentally or on purpose — with the rest of your stuff. But now, thanks to a member of the Offspring Parenting Facebook Group, I know how to lock down my phone.

Here’s how you do it

1. Go to Setting & General & Accessibility & Guided Access.

2. Turn “Guided Access” and “Accessibility Shortcut” on.

3. Open your kid’s app and press the home button three times in a row.

4. The first time you do this, it will prompt you to enter a passcode to start the “guided access.”

5. To exit guided access, hit the home button three times again and enter your passcode.

We’ve already told you how to do this on your Android phone, in case you need a refresher:


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