Tuesday, September 7, 2021

How to Hard-Lock Your iPhone

Apple:

Apple today announced that it is working with several states across the country, which will roll out the ability for their residents to seamlessly and securely add their driver’s license or state ID to Wallet on their iPhone and Apple Watch.

John Gruber:

When you pay with Apple Pay, you never hand your phone to an employee. It wouldn’t even work, because no one else can authorize an Apple Pay transaction without your biometric authentication. This ID feature for Wallet is exactly like that: it doesn’t work without your biometric authentication, and your phone does not unlock when you use it.

[…]

With a Face ID iPhone, you hard-lock your iPhone by pressing and holding the side button and either volume button. Two seconds or so — just long enough to make the “Slide to power off” screen appear. (That screen also has sliders for Medical ID and Emergency SOS.) With a Touch ID iPhone, you just press and hold the power button.

Once you do this, your iPhone will require your passcode to unlock. You can’t use Face ID or Touch ID to unlock until after you’ve unlocked with your passcode. That means even if someone confiscates your phone by force, they cannot unlock it by pointing it at your face or by forcing your finger onto the Touch ID sensor. Remember to put your iPhone into this mode every time you’re separated from it as you go through the magnetometer at any security checkpoint, especially in the airport.

2 Comments RSS · Twitter


Is it just me, or does Gruber have a link with text "how to hard-lock your iPhone" which leads to an Apple help page that doesn't say anything about hard-locking an iPhone?


@sam Gruber is linking to the pictures that illustrate the buttons on the phones that he is referring to - not to Apple's instructions. I don't think Apple clearly points out how to hard lock as Gruber's explanation does.

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