One of the big challenges for parents these days is that you may want to give your kids access to a phone for emergencies or tracking before you are willing to give them access to the internet, social media apps, and so on. There’s also a growing trend of people buying dumb phones in order to reduce their own phone addiction, like the Nokia shown above.

Apple is giving parental controls a major upgrade in iOS 27, but there’s a little-known way to turn an iPhone into a dumb phone without waiting for this …

Wired’s Jeremy White realized he could use an accessibility feature in order to give his son an iPhone without access to web browsing and with complete control over the apps he was allowed to use – all without needing to subscribe to a third-party app.

He did it using a feature called Assistive Access. This is something I actually used myself when repurposing an old iPad into a smart home control panel for guests, though in that case I was locking it to just one app. It allows you not only to choose the apps available to a user but also to opt for large friendly tiles for those apps instead of the usual iOS interface.

White said that setting it up was extremely straightforward (sadly, he beat me to the “child’s play” phrasing I’d intended to use).

Here’s how you set it up: Head into Settings, tap Accessibility, scroll down to the General section at the very bottom, and tap Assistive Access. Now, tap Set Up Assistive Access, then Continue. It will then ask you to select your preferred appearance: rows or a grid. I suggest choosing a grid. This is how you get those super-large tiles. Now the OS will ask you to select allowed apps—tap the green plus icon next to the apps you want to allow.

If you don’t include Safari in the allowed apps, then your child won’t be allowed access to the web, even if someone sends them a link. He says that you get a really impressive degree of control.

Once you add, say, Messages or Calls, you then choose whether your child can contact or be contacted by everyone, their contacts only, or just selected favorites […] Decide how notifications appear? That too. The Music app only accesses playlists you pre-approve.

Are any of you already using this approach – or tempted to, now that you know about it? Please share in the comments.

• Nokia 105 4G dumb phone
• iPhone 16e on Amazon Renewed
• Official Apple Store on Amazon
• Discounted AirPods Pro 3
• Wireless CarPlay adapter
• AirTag holders and accessories
• Mac Pro-style Mac mini casing
• NordVPN – privacy-first VPN with no logs and independent audits to verify

Nokia photo by Isaac Smith on Unsplash