This Buried Apple Feature Turns an iPhone Into the Perfect Kids’ Dumb Phone
I have been looking at classic dumb phones for months. Not out of nostalgia—though the first phone I bought with my own money was the
I have been looking at classic dumb phones for months. Not out of nostalgia—though the first phone I bought with my own money was the Nokia 8210, and I still think about it (launched in October 1999 at Paris Fashion Week, it was then the world's smallest and lightest mobile). But the day I've been dreading has come: It's finally time for my son to get his first phone. Come September, he will have to walk across town to school on his own. But if he's going to be walking around out in the world without me, then a tracking tag won't cut it.
He is far too young to have unfettered access to the internet and social media platforms, but what if he gets lost? A classic Nokia, supplying just texts and calls, won't come to his aid. Maps and satnav require a web connection. In short, he needs a smartphone that's not a smartphone. As a family deeply embedded in the Apple ecosystem, we first looked to set draconian restrictions on my child's Apple account. But, amazingly, it immediately became obvious that it is impossible to block the use of Safari on iOS.
Yes, you can restrict access to the app, but children have quickly found workarounds for such measures, such as asking friends to message them links, which can bypass restrictions when opened. There are third-party apps such as Dumb Phone for iPhones and the Minimalist Phone app for Android users, but what irks me about these is that they charge you for the privilege of removing access to applications from your phone. Not adding—removing. My head can't fathom the logic of paying for things to be taken away from a phone.
Surely there must be a way to set up an iPhone as the perfect dumb phone for children—one with access to only the apps you deem appropriate, no internet browser, but with all-important tracking and navigation abilities—without having to pay another company to make it work? Well, there is. It's been hiding in the iOS Accessibility menu the whole time. And, inexplicably, it's a feature Apple barely talks about.
The BriefWire