Best iPhone Tip for Parents: Guided Access Mode

Yesterday I learned about one of the most amazing iPhone Tips/Tricks that I am embarrassed to say I had no idea existed.

And if you’re a parent who has a baby/toddler/whatever who likes to take your iPhone and play with it, this is going to be the most amazing iPhone tip you’ve heard recently. It’s called Guided Access.

Guided Access essentially lets you decide what your toddler can control on your iPhone and what she can’t. There have been many times when I find an app for Caleb to play with, hand it to him, and within a second or two, he’s managed to push the Home button, and before I know it, he’s close to re-arranging and deleting apps on my Home Screen (not cool kid, not cool).

Or you’re trying to FaceTime with the grandparents on your iPad and your son keeps hitting the “End” button or the mute button. Totally annoying.

And now…all of those problems, and more, go away. With Guided Access.

To turn on Guided Access, go to Settings -> General -> Accessibility -> Guided Access (under Learning). Then you can turn it On. Once you’ve initialized it, you just need to open up the app you want your baby to play with, get it all setup, and then triple-click the Home button.

That will pull up an option screen, where you can Start Guided Access Mode, or set a few other options. You can even turn off the Touch Screen, if you just want your child to watch what’s on the screen but not be able to pull up any other options or settings within an app.

Then you just turn it on and you’re good to go. I used it last night with Caleb and it worked great. We also tried it with FaceTime yesterday afternoon, and he couldn’t hit any of the buttons. Beautiful.

When you’re ready to be done with Guided Access, simply triple-click again, type in the Passcode that you had to set when you setup Guided Access, and you’re back to your phone as usual. You will also see a nice message alerting you that you’ve now ended Guided Access.

I’m sure many of you probably already knew this function existed, but I was glad to find out today. Makes handing over my iPhone to Caleb (only when he’s walking on soft/carpeted areas) a lot easier.