iPhone Guided Access: Tornado Lock

After mentioning the 2 main reasons I finally upgraded to iOS 6 on my iPhone (panoramic camera and Guided Access) to a friend... she asked me to explain Guided Access... which I have come to think of as: Tornado Lock.

This, in a nut shell, is what I've learned about it and how it works.

Guided Access allows you to lock yourself (or Tornado in my case) INTO an app.  By using Guided Access you can disable the hardware buttons -home, power, and volume buttons- as well as make certain areas of the screen untouchable.

Here's how you use it....

To start, you will need to go into Settings>General>Accessibility to turn ON Guided Access.  It's under the Learning heading about 2/3 of the way down the menu.

You will need to enter a 4 digit passcode to be able to unlock Guided Access when you're done using it.

Once you've done that, continue on.

Since Tornado loves Perry, I'm using the Where's My Perry? app as a visual guide.

1)  Open up an app.

2)  TRIPLE click the home button.  This will open the Guided Access screen.

 

3)  In the Guided Access screen, draw a circle around the areas you don't want touchable.

I love that I can draw a box around the whole screen when I let Tornado watch Netflix on my phone so he can't continually hit pause!  SCORE!

4)  Click the Options button at the bottom.  Here is where you can change settings for hardware buttons, touch, and motion.  Click DONE when you're chosen your settings.

5)  Once you have your settings and areas set, click Start in the upper right hand corner.

Now Guided Access is active and you will see a gray scale area over the areas you don't want access to.  This makes them inaccessible.

To turn off Guided Access, TRIPLE click the home button.  Even if your hardware button are disabled, it will work!  Enter your passcode then hit the End button in the upper left corner.

As long as your kiddo doesn't know your passcode, you don't have to worry about them accidentally triple clicking and unlocking it.  The downside though is if they input the wrong passcode, you are locked out from another attempt.  Each failed attempt adds time to how long before you can try again - much like if you have a passcode set on your phone.

That's all there is to it!  It's a great option to allow your young kiddo access to his favorite apps or tv shows without worrying about what else s/he could be doing while they have "control" of your iPhone.