How to Keep People From Spying on Your Phone
Sometimes when you show a photo to a friend or relative, they will rudely flip through other images. We have a way to do this. But what if they start opening other apps ? Oh my God! I was shocked to hear this. But you can stop them. Here’s how to enable Guided Access shortcut and easily block people in the same app when they borrow your phone. You can even use it to freeze your phone completely on one screen.
Why
Guided Access (“screen pinning” on Android) is a kind of demo mode that prevents the user from leaving the current application without a password or fingerprint. It’s great for lending your phone:
- Children
- Parents
- Strangers take pictures of you
- Your immature friend who should only use Maps while driving, but who will definitely try to text your boyfriend: “I can’t do this anymore, I’m tired of lying”
Include the shortcut
First, enable the shortcut beforehand. On Android, enable screen pinning :
- Open settings
- Scroll to Fingerprints & Security
- Enable screen pinning
On iOS, enable Guided Access :
- Open settings
- Choose General > Accessibility and scroll down to open Guided Access.
- Enable Guided Access
- Turn on the accessibility shortcut
Now that you’re in the app, just press the Home button two (Android) or three (iOS) times and you’ll be locked out of the app until you enter your password. This way, you can discreetly lock your phone before handing it over. The borrower will only notice this if he tries to deceive your trust.
Additional features in iOS
On iOS, the first time you enable Guided Access for each app, the app will ask which features you want to restrict. (Guided Access always blocks notifications.) With app-specific controls, you can:
- Disable certain parts of the screen
- Disable keyboard, volume rocker and other hardware buttons
- Mount your phone to the vertical display
- Disable touch completely
- Set a time limit
Disabling all touch controls essentially locks the phone. This is a great way to show a single photo or video to a child or rude adult.
And if you want to use it to lock yourself into a “good habit” app like the Kindle, you can also adjust your password settings to exclude Touch ID. You will then need to enter your password before switching to Twitter. I have found that this little friction helps reduce temptation. Because sometimes you are a spy .