Probably the single most useful hidden feature, valuable to parents everywhere, is “Guided Access” mode available through accessibility settings.
It lets you lock the screen to a single app or disable touch entirely (or even by custom region), so that you can hand your device to a kid without worrying they will delete your photos.
They never even really promoted this features in their news updates.
It also makes the app come up immediately when your turn on the screen, so it's in front of the lock screen basically (but you can only access that particular app). It's good for showing someone a specific app. I also use it for instant access to my train ticket (QR code on screen on the train company's app). The iOS version sounds better though.
IMO the feature shouldn’t even be in Find My because it’s not really related to finding your phone or activation locking/unlocking it.
It’s a perfect example of a feature being surfaced exactly as it should be, when needed. Quite a bit of mental gymnastics to twist that into being an ‘issue’.
Now that I know it's a feature, I won't suggest that for iPhone users as backup+restore just sucks. (I know restore is easy, but bank apps, Signal, etc don't get backed up, so it is an annoyance)
So it can easily be opened by someone who restrains you and holds your phone in front of your face then?
- He was at a bar and got to talking to one girl.
- There was another girl watching him and his phone and figured out his passcode. The bar was dimly lit so FaceID didn't always work and at some point he entered his passcode and she saw.
- They all left to "go back to their place" and in the process the girls stole his phone.
- Mid ride they kicked him out of the Uber.
- He goes home and realized his bank accounts have all been cleaned out via Venmo and CashApp.
Had those apps been inside the "secure folder", they would have not been able to access them and thus would not have been able to clean him out like they did.
I don’t think the dark stops Face ID. It works fine in total darkness.
Holding the side button + volume button together until you see the power-off slider also temporarily disables Face ID / Touch ID, requiring the device passcode for unlocking.
You can also set your phone to erase after ten failed passcodes.
Although to be fair, they might just switch to a pistol at that point. After all, you are no longer useful once the data has gone.
[2]: https://daringfireball.net/2022/06/require_a_passcode_to_unl...
Why isn't showing the user how to enable "repair mode" one of the first things the "genius" does if such a feature exists? In the same spirit as us turning away when a user enters their password.
But I should mention, I was in the middle of writing a comment along the lines of "apple really needs to add a repair mode to iOS" before going to look it up and realizing that it's actually been there since iOS 17.
For me this highlights another issue with iOS which is it has many awesome features that you just won't know about unless you're a techie that keeps up with the news. One great example is the "hidden folder" feature that allows you to hide sensitive apps in an unmarked folder that when set to it's most secure setting, can only be opened with FaceID and no passcode backup. Along with some other features like preventing the app from showing up in your app switcher.
This is a genius feature but I see very few people with it enabled, mostly because they just don't know it's a thing. Something like this should be front and center when you first setup your device but instead it's a feature so buried that I had to lookup a guide on how to enable it.
And repair mode is equally buried, I had to lookup a guide on how to enable it as well. IMHO Apple really needs to tweak iOS to better surface these features.