"Android and iOS should have a system-level ability to lock focus on the active application. This would mean you could open a concert ticket, a photo, or your digital insurance record (which is a VERY BAD IDEA to hand to a cop without this feature), guest-lock your phone, and hand it over without any worry that someone could start opening other apps to look for things you didn't want to show them."
yeah, handing your unlocked phone to a flight attendant during boarding or an immigration official while entering a country has become commonplace too.
Samsung has had this for about ten years now. Switch to the app switch view, hold the icon at the top and pin the app. If I remember correctly, on some versions this had to be enabled once in settings.
> Android and iOS should have a system-level ability to lock focus on the active application.
iOS already has this, it's called Guided Access and you can access it by triple-pressing the power button... it even lets you set up areas of the screen that can't be pressed.
Both Apple and Android have this feature preloaded. On Apple it’s called Guided Access and is three taps of the power button if enabled. On Android I’m not sure but I do know it exists (edit: it’s called App Pinning)
On iOS you can also disable specific actions and even select areas of the screen you want to disable touchscreen usage over.
It should work. If you mean using Guided Access while Apple Wallet is enabled, you double click for Apple Wallet and triple click for Guided Access. If you want to use Apple Wallet while Guided Access is enabled, you have to enable the side button in Guided Access settings.
You can also configure the action button to enable Guided Access as well depending on what phone you have.
100% - I would have assumed the author would have searched first as it's trivial to find this feature if you look on Google or ask ChatGPT.
I do wonder if part of the issue though is that we have thousands of these 'great' features, so discovery is poor because people can't possibly know about them all. 'great' features lost in a sea of other 'great' features.
Beware of trying it when you really might need your phone. It can get stuck in weird ways where triple-clicking brings up the pin entry screen and then shuts off the display for a while being unresponsive to the power button. Basically it’s frustratingly buggy.
Maybe I’m reading too much into these negative comments, but we’re reading the same text. Right? Some rando’s thoughts in their public blog (no offense intended; the about admits they’re just a person on Central Time)?
It’s not like this is an article on Tom’s Hardware or TechDirt. I’m not against pointing out errors and oversights, but why this sense of offense, shock, incredulity.
Heck. It’s not AI Slop or do you want more AI articles instead of these uninformed hot-take blog posts? Hehe
For me, it's that writing the blog post clearly took more effort than searching for the proper name of the feature. So writing in the blog post that they can't be bothered to find the proper name of the feature seems performative: if they were actually concerned about addressing the problem, they would have addressed it, and there would be no blog post.
This feels like a social problem, not a technological one, and I am unconvinced that a technological solution will work here.
If the worry is that the cop you hand your phone to will take more access than you want, then attempting to limit that access is probably not going to work out the way you want.
A more effective solution would be better legal protections.
I had an Android phone circa 2018 (Samsung S8) that had this feature: it was called "App Pinning" and people could only navigate inside the pinned app until you unlocked your phone like you usually would.
Edit: I am now an iOS user since 2022, and I only learn about "Guided Access" from other comments haha
I believe this works on Android in general, but I tried on GrapheneOS. Open the Settings app. Tap Security & Privacy > More security & privacy > App pinning. After that is enabled, if you want to pin an app, open it, swipe up into the recent-apps view, tap the icon of the app above the preview pane, and select "Pin".
The feature is buried a bit. I believe this is because it's more of a best-effort protection. The settings page itself says:
"When an app is pinned, the pinned app may open other apps and personal data may be accessible. If you want to securely share your device with someone, try using a guest user instead."
Due to the intent system on Android allowing a pinned application to open another one (for example by sharing something), I prefer instead to create a guest user and add the app in question to that account.
That way no other applications are available to open, accidentally or otherwise.
> This means it would be more easily abused if you're using biometric unlocks, yes, but by no means does it make the feature useless. And it normalizes a level of trust between individuals which is appropriate, but impossible, in many situations.
Here's the problem. By being abusable, it falsly normalises a level of trust. I.e. it deceives the user into trusting it.
App pinning exists on Android already, it's extremely useful if you're handing over your phone to your child to just watch netflix or whatever :P It's just extremely unintuitive, I had to google where it is.
Because you need to prove you have insurance to drive and the proof is on your phone rather than a piece of paper.
I don't know about America but in the UK, if you can't provide proof immediately the officer will give you a "producer", which is a legal notice requiring you to provide the evidence at a police station within some time limit (typically a week or two).
Edited to add: I'd guess this is less common these days because the British police have access to a database of motor insurance anyway.
I've never had to show proof of insurance here, in the Netherlands, it's linked digitally to your license plate. I don't understand why other countries wouldn't do the same.
It's the kind of feature that would rub people the wrong way, whether it's a cop, a friend, or a stranger you want to show a funny video to.
To give a couple of examples, using this would be a bit like locking the glove box in front of traffic cops, or going around the house locking rooms when you have a guest.
The only way to make it socially acceptable would be to make it some sort of default (for example, requiring face id when switching apps, with pin/fingerprint as a backup), which will probably be an option as the lag and failure rate of face id or other owner-detection technologies improve.
> To give a couple of examples, using this would be a bit like locking the glove box in front of traffic cops, or going around the house locking rooms when you have a guest.
That's a good point. Doing this basically says "I distrust you", which you probably don't want to say. (At least I don't.)
in response the all the comments that state that this feature already exists. i didn't know about that, and it's also not the kind of feature that should be obvious so i would not think to search for it, so i am very glad to find this here.
needing this happens rarely and in most cases where i needed it i actually wanted to show a static screen and not even give access to the whole app. for that i found an app that can show an image on an otherwise locked screen.
[OP] crisdias | 10 hours ago
nomilk | 9 hours ago
chrisjj | 9 hours ago
toilet | 9 hours ago
Terr_ | 9 hours ago
Not just because of the privacy aspects, but what if you're already using your phone to record the interaction?
V__ | 9 hours ago
pernus-bernus | 9 hours ago
banach | 9 hours ago
chrisjj | 9 hours ago
LoganDark | 9 hours ago
iOS already has this, it's called Guided Access and you can access it by triple-pressing the power button... it even lets you set up areas of the screen that can't be pressed.
spaqin | 9 hours ago
lionpv7 | 9 hours ago
nephihaha | 9 hours ago
ChrisRR | 9 hours ago
https://support.google.com/android/answer/9455138?hl=en
badgersnake | 9 hours ago
pudgywalsh | 9 hours ago
em-bee | 4 hours ago
em-bee | 4 hours ago
odo1242 | 9 hours ago
On iOS you can also disable specific actions and even select areas of the screen you want to disable touchscreen usage over.
mschuster91 | 9 hours ago
Nice. Unfortunately, GA does not seem to work with Apple Wallet at all.
Closi | 9 hours ago
odo1242 | 9 hours ago
You can also configure the action button to enable Guided Access as well depending on what phone you have.
mschuster91 | 7 hours ago
I don't have that one (iPhone 15 Pro). When triple tapping in Wallet, I get an overlay "guided access cannot be opened when multiple apps are active".
The scenario would be e.g. at a concert entrance queue where there is a nonzero risk of someone snatching the unlocked phone out of my hands.
Closi | 9 hours ago
I do wonder if part of the issue though is that we have thousands of these 'great' features, so discovery is poor because people can't possibly know about them all. 'great' features lost in a sea of other 'great' features.
jahnu | 9 hours ago
ChrisRR | 7 hours ago
You think if they couldn't even be arsed to google the name, that they'd google to find out their idea has already existed for years?
xtiansimon | 6 hours ago
Maybe I’m reading too much into these negative comments, but we’re reading the same text. Right? Some rando’s thoughts in their public blog (no offense intended; the about admits they’re just a person on Central Time)?
It’s not like this is an article on Tom’s Hardware or TechDirt. I’m not against pointing out errors and oversights, but why this sense of offense, shock, incredulity.
Heck. It’s not AI Slop or do you want more AI articles instead of these uninformed hot-take blog posts? Hehe
rpdillon | 3 hours ago
Planktonne | 9 hours ago
If the worry is that the cop you hand your phone to will take more access than you want, then attempting to limit that access is probably not going to work out the way you want.
A more effective solution would be better legal protections.
shim__ | 9 hours ago
Planktonne | 9 hours ago
[1] https://xkcd.com/538/
shim__ | 2 hours ago
Shywim | 9 hours ago
Edit: I am now an iOS user since 2022, and I only learn about "Guided Access" from other comments haha
captn3m0 | 9 hours ago
BlackRabbit1 | 9 hours ago
cubefox | 9 hours ago
re-framer | 9 hours ago
The feature is buried a bit. I believe this is because it's more of a best-effort protection. The settings page itself says:
"When an app is pinned, the pinned app may open other apps and personal data may be accessible. If you want to securely share your device with someone, try using a guest user instead."
MrDresden | 9 hours ago
That way no other applications are available to open, accidentally or otherwise.
cubefox | 8 hours ago
I tested it and it blocks opening other apps when pinned. Maybe blocking app opening doesn't work for apps using some older system APIs.
cubefox | 8 hours ago
chrisjj | 9 hours ago
Here's the problem. By being abusable, it falsly normalises a level of trust. I.e. it deceives the user into trusting it.
amelius | 9 hours ago
gambiting | 9 hours ago
mechazawa | 9 hours ago
masfuerte | 9 hours ago
I don't know about America but in the UK, if you can't provide proof immediately the officer will give you a "producer", which is a legal notice requiring you to provide the evidence at a police station within some time limit (typically a week or two).
Edited to add: I'd guess this is less common these days because the British police have access to a database of motor insurance anyway.
mechazawa | 6 hours ago
seri4l | 8 hours ago
To give a couple of examples, using this would be a bit like locking the glove box in front of traffic cops, or going around the house locking rooms when you have a guest.
The only way to make it socially acceptable would be to make it some sort of default (for example, requiring face id when switching apps, with pin/fingerprint as a backup), which will probably be an option as the lag and failure rate of face id or other owner-detection technologies improve.
cubefox | 8 hours ago
That's a good point. Doing this basically says "I distrust you", which you probably don't want to say. (At least I don't.)
em-bee | 3 hours ago
needing this happens rarely and in most cases where i needed it i actually wanted to show a static screen and not even give access to the whole app. for that i found an app that can show an image on an otherwise locked screen.