Hands-On Apple 192 Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

0:00:00 - Mikah Sargent
Coming up on Hands-On Apple, let's take a look at locking and hiding our apps when needed. Stay tuned.

0:00:10 - Leo Laporte
Podcasts you love From people you trust. This is Twit.

0:00:25 - Mikah Sargent
Welcome to Hands-On Apple. I am Micah Sargent and, as is always my way, we are talking today about how to make the most of your devices, your Apple devices. Today, we're taking a look at a feature that's available on iPhone and iPad that gives you more privacy and security when needed. So there are, you know, any number of reasons why someone might need to keep someone from accessing specific apps on their device. Maybe you know it's an untrustworthy individual who you need to show your phone to and you don't want them going through your photos while you are trying to just show them something in the browser. Or maybe you're handing off your phone to your child to play around with and you want to keep them from accessing and turning on and off your lights in the Home app or whatever it happens to be. Look, that's whatever reason. It is up to you how you go about doing it. My job here is to show you how you can lock apps and hide apps on your device. Before we do that, though, I do need to start by explaining a little bit about this process and what it actually does. So, when you lock an app, information that's inside of that app when it's locked is not going to appear in other locations. So if you are used to an app showing information in CarPlay or seeing notifications from that app, or you hope to be able to search within that app whenever you do it or get serious suggestions or perhaps call history within an app that does calling outside of phone, then locking that app means that that information is not going to be available there. Something else to bear in mind if you have multiple devices, locking or hiding an app on a specific device does not lock or hide that app on other devices as well. No, it is specific to that device. Now, for children under 13 in a family sharing group, they will not be able to, on their device, lock or hide an app. However, anyone 13 to 17 years of age in a family sharing group they're able to lock or hide their apps, but a parent or guardian can see that the app was downloaded, they can see how much time was spent in the app and they can restrict access to it using screen time. So bear that in mind that there is the ability to hide or lock an app, but some of the functionality of that is available to others.

So let's head over to iPadOS and take a look at how to lock an app, and I want you to bear in mind, too, that this is something that is available on iOS. So here we are on iPadOS and one thing of note, there are some apps that simply cannot be locked. Many of the apps that come with the iPhone or iPad so calculator, camera, clock, contacts, find my maps, shortcuts and, as you might imagine, settings cannot be locked. If you're looking at trying to prohibit access to these apps, screen time or guided access are better ways to go about locking those down. But let's go with my example earlier, that you are handing off your phone to a child and you want to keep them from turning on and off your lights.

Right now I can launch the Home app and boom, it pops open. I'm able to see and control everything. I don't want that to be the case. I want a passcode, face ID or touch ID to be in the way of someone being able to access the Home app. I will tap and hold on home. This is from the home screen. A screen will pop up or a little settings menu will pop up. It's called the quick actions menu and down near the bottom is require face ID. Because this is a face ID device. I tap require face ID and up pops a little bit of information about what I'm doing. I choose require face ID information about what I'm doing. I choose require face ID. I face ID authenticate and that gives me the ability to lock it. Now it does say something very important your HomeKit data may appear in the apps below without using face ID. You can change this in privacy settings. So it's letting you know. Hey, even though you locked this app, these other apps have access to this information. So I can tap done here and now.

If I tap on home and I'm going to cover my Face ID, it says Face ID is required to open home. I cannot access this app unless I Face ID authenticate. And now I have access. But what if I want to turn that off now? I don't need that to be the way that things go. Well, it's very easy. We tap on it and we choose. We tap and hold on it to access that quick actions menu and we choose don't require face ID. Then it requires me to type in a password, so my passcode. So I will type that in and now when I tap on the home app, it no longer requires Face ID to unlock. So that is, locking and unlocking an app.

But what about hiding an app? What if we don't want the app to show up? Well, that's going to be a little different, and in this case it does require it to be a third-party app. Apps that come installed with iOS 18 or later cannot be hidden. Only apps that you download separately from the App Store can be hidden. It also is the case that apps that are set by the user as a default web browser cannot be hidden either. So in order to hide an app which, on top of making it so that it's locked, does not appear on the home screen or in the main part of the app library, which I'll get to in a moment that requires the same thing.

Now, lock and hide are different things. When you hide an app, its name will still show up in some places screen time, battery usage by app and in your app store purchase history. So just bear that in mind. But let's say I want to hide an app and I have no reason to hide this app specifically, but it's just one, that's a third-party app, that's on my home screen and that's a notable. So I tap and I hold on a notable and I'm going to tap the same thing require face ID. But when I get to this, you'll see that, because this is a third-party app, there's a second option where before, with home, I had require face ID and cancel, here I have require face ID and a new option hide and require face ID. Tapping on that authenticating is going to let me do that Now. As it says, this app will no longer be visible on your iPad except in a few places such as settings. Face ID or your passcode will be required to reveal, open or use Siri with the app. It has an obscured app appearance, so the app will be obscured on your home screen and in a folder for hidden apps and app library. There's a spoiler you will not receive notifications, calls or critical alerts from this app.

I choose hide app and now it's not there, if I remember that a notable was showing up there, right there on my desktop, on my wall, on my home screen. How do I access it? Well, in order to open a hidden app, you will need to go to the hidden folder at the bottom of the app library. So if we tap on settings and we go to apps and we scroll all the way down, we can see hidden apps. Iface ID authenticate and I can see a notable is there in the hidden app section. From here I'm able to make changes to its settings and be able to view it there and then from the app library, which I access by swiping all the way to the far right side. So I swipe to the left to get to the right, I scroll all the way down past all of these categories to hidden to get to the right, I scroll all the way down past all of these categories to hidden. I tap on hidden, I authenticate and up pops a notable here in the hidden apps section. From here I can tap and hold on this app and remember I can choose don't require face ID. So in order to unhide this app and make it available once again, tap and hold on the app after I've authenticated once to make it appear in the hidden folders. Choose don't require Face ID, authenticate with my face and then click OK and now it's back and I could move it back to my home screen if I wanted to. So I can scroll down here until we get to AN and there's a notable.

So again, there are many reasons why you might need or want to lock or hide apps on your devices Works the same on iPhone and iPad. The important thing is to understand the difference. Locking will still show the app, but it requires authentication of some sort to access it. Hiding, on the other hand, is going to make it so that it does not appear except in that hidden folder. But, as you saw, you couldn't even see the app icon in the hidden folder until after you've authenticated to prove that you're you. So that is a look at both locking and hiding apps on your iPad and iPhone. Thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode of Hands-On Apple. Always my pleasure to bring you this show. If you have questions for me, micah at twittv or HOA at twittv those are two ways you can get in touch Would love, love, love to hear from you and help you.

0:10:07 - Leo Laporte
As I always say, make the most of your Apple devices. Bye-bye, hey. Thanks for tuning in to Twit, your tech hub for intelligent, thoughtful conversations. If you want to take your experience to the next level and support what we do here at twit, say goodbye to ads and say hello to club twit. With club twit, you unlock all our shows ad free. You also get exclusive members only content. We do a lot of great programming just for the club members. You also get behind the scenes access with our twit plus bonus feed and live video streams while we're recording.

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