Monday, March 25, 2013

Ain't Nobody Got Time for the Home Button.

I am about to tell you about a life changing feature on your iPhone or iPad.
My friend, Cait, taught me about this and our lives will never be the same. 

Here's the tip that can change your life if
you're like me and you share your iPhone or iPad for a brief moment of silence.
Or out of desperation to gain just 5 more minutes of shopping. 
Or to quiet the screaming on the overtired car ride home. 
Or to distract at a restaurant to avoid a scene.

Or if your child is like Adalyn and is obsessed with the Home Button. 
Playing with Siri is easy and fine, but only keeps her busy for so long.
But when it's given with a purpose of a video or a game within .02 seconds of holding it she closes the app, hands it to me saying "moh" or "uh oh".
Over and over and over. 

Still keeping her busy and avoiding scenes? Yes.
Annoying? Yes
Feeling counterproductive? At times.

Well, these feelings are no more. 

There's a magic feature hidden in the settings.
Settings--> General-->Accessibility.

 Accessibility--> "Learning" Guided Access. 

Put Guided Access "On" and set a 4 digit passcode. 

When you open an app, click the home button 3 times and then click start in the upper right hand corner. 
You have the ability to turn off all hardware buttons {this is what we always do}, touch screen and motion. 
When you want to get out of the app just click the home button 3 times and type in the passcode.
When I first heard about it I thought that seemed like kind of a lot of work {laziness at it's finest?}, but oh my goodness gracious is it worth every step. 

I seriously wasn't kidding. 
This is life changing.
Can I get an amen?

Set it up, sit back and watch your child press the home key over and over and over with the app staying open.



6 comments:

Emily said...

This is amazing!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

Beth Ann said...

Oh yes! We use this alllllllllll the time! ;) Although H has started hitting the home button multiple times in a row resulting in the pass code resulting in him typing in something random resulting in us being locked out for a certain period of time. This is when the iPad/iPhone kid cases that block the home button access come in handy. ;)

Ashley Austin said...

Ahhhhh-mazing!!!!! I cant wait to do this on my ipad!!

Unknown said...

This might have to be the greatest blog post I have read ALL day. My 2 year old might not like it, but I LOVE this!

Anonymous said...

Thanks! Will use this with my grandchildren!!

Hallie said...

this is AMAZING! thank you so much for sharing this! =]