Guided Access is one of those obscure accessibility controls buried deep within iOS and iPadOS that you likely didn’t even know existed. However, it can make a big difference in how you — or selected others — use and control access to your Apple device. We explain how to enable and use this feature on the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.
Guided Access acts to limit your Apple device to using just one active app. It grants access to all controls and features available to that specific app, but it doesn’t let users access any other app installed on the device. Guided Access isn’t limited to specific apps. For example, if you restrict an iPhone to just YouTube Kids and hand that device over to a child, your device won’t be in total disarray when you take it back. Guided Access doesn’t even grant access to the home screen.
Overall, Guided Access serves to protect your privacy, prevent accidental changes by a third party who may be using your device, or keep you focused on the task at hand. The timer function is especially convenient for limiting usage to specific tasks. It’s ideal for parents, educational settings, businesses, restaurants, museums, and so on.
We start by enabling the feature using iOS 15. These instructions work equally well with all Apple mobile devices.
Step 2: Scroll down and choose Accessibility.
Step 3: Scroll down and choose Guided Access near the bottom.
Step 4: Select the toggle next to Guided Access to enable this feature (if it’s not already).
Step 5: Choose Passcode settings and then select Set Guided Access passcode. Enter a passcode twice. The passcode is the key to protecting your phone because the user must know what it is to exit the designated app. Alternately, you can enable Face ID or Touch ID as a way to end a Guided Access session.
Step 6: Go back to the previous screen and select the toggle next to Accessibility shortcut. This allows you to triple-click the Home or Side button and enter Guided Access mode at any time from within your chosen app.
Do the following steps when you’re ready to concentrate on a single app.
Alternately, you can use Siri to start a Guided Access session by launching an app and telling Siri to “turn on Guided Access.” Siri will not do anything until you have an app open.
Step 1: Open the app that you want to focus on.
Step 2: Triple-click the Side button (iPhone X or newer) or the Home button (iPhone SE or any older Apple device with a Home button).
Step 4: Use your finger to circle parts of the screen you don’t want responding to touch input. This is convenient when watching a video or reading so you cannot tap out of your task. You can move or resize the defined areas or tap the X to remove them.
Step 5: Select the Start button in the upper-right.
After you open an app and activate Guided Access, you can easily move in and out of the mode with a triple-click of either the Home or the Side button. To see additional options, you must first click out of Guided Access. Then you will see an Options button in the bottom-left corner. This lets you control access to several features.
Step 2: A pop-up menu appears at the bottom displaying six toggles: Side Button, Volume Buttons, Motion, Keyboards, Touch, and Time Limit. Choose the toggle to enable or disable each and then select Done.
Step 3: Resume to continue your Guided Access session.
There are two major ways to terminate a Guided Access session.
Once Guided Access is enabled, anyone trying to leave the locked app will receive a message telling them to triple-click the Home or Side button to exit. If they don’t know the passcode, they won’t be able to exit Guided Access.
If you ever get stuck in Guided Access mode, just hard-reboot the device to clear it out. To completely disable Guided Access, go back into Settings and tap the Toggle to disable this feature.
Step 1: Triple-click the Side or Home button, enter the passcode, and tap End.
Step 2: Triple-click the Side or Home button and allow Touch ID or Face ID to end the session.
Affinity’s new all-in-one creative app is finally coming to the iPad, nearly a year after Canva launched the redesigned desktop version for Mac and Windows. Creatives have been asking for the iPad release ever since, especially because files created in the new Affinity app cannot be opened in the older V2 iPad apps.
Affinity already has Photo, Designer, and Publisher apps on iPad, but the new release combines those tools into the same unified app that Canva launched on desktop last year.
Touchscreen laptops have been around for years. You can get them in all sizes and shapes. Just not from Apple. For years, the Cupertino giant has treated the idea of a touchscreen MacBook the way I treat a meeting that could have been an email: with open contempt. However, Wednesday looks like the day the company could finally change its mind.
The latest Apple invite puts the “Pro and Tell” showcase in Los Angeles at 10 a.m. PT (1 p.m. ET) on October 28, 2026. Instead of a regular live-streamed keynote, it is an invitation-only, hands-on event for a handful of press and creators (similar to what the company did for the MacBook Neo earlier this year).
Apple has just launched its latest iPad mini with a notable set of upgrades, including an OLED screen, improved speakers, and a more resilient build. It also gets a new chip, and the whole package costs $200 more than its predecessor. But if you look closely at Apple’s online store, you’ll realize that $699 isn’t enough to get you the most powerful version of the A20 Pro chip inside this tablet. In fact, even if you pay $800 for the 256GB model, you still won’t get the beefiest variant. Only when you jump to the 512GB trim, which costs an absurd $999, do you get the most powerful flavor of the A20 Pro.
The $999 model gets more than extra storage