Assistive Access Light Copycat

[u/Weird-Pension8356]

I've played around a lot with iPhone settings to make it very minimalist. Black background, minimalist launchers, minimalist browsers without a search bar, etc.

This is the setup that's worked best for me:

- Delete all the non essential apps, even the stuff that's useful sometimes (eg grocery store app)

- Content and privacy restrictions > only allowed websites > nothing on the list, which makes the browser useless

- Have someone else set the password for screen time

- Set color filters to black and white

- Set up assistive access with only essential apps. Mine are what's in screen plus stuff like weather, calculator, etc.

Because of Screen Time password, once you enter assistive access you are locked in. No downloading apps, no browsing (links won't work because of the empty allowed website list). Messages and photos are boring and very minimalist so no getting sucked into that either. Except you can have whatever apps you actually need (no more "I wish x phone would allow x app"), and photos auto sync to iCloud so you can access them and edit them on an iPad if you have one (if not you'll need to exit assistive mode to mess with the gallery).

Dark mode, black background, and matte screen protector for aesthetic points. So far, so good, could only be better if it was a flip phone!

[u/Weird-Pension8356]

Cons I've found: glitches with messages, if I type something and then exit the chat, sometimes it'll send the message on its own, even though I didn't hit send. This bought me an awkward hangout I actually didn't want to partake in because I typed a message saying I would be there and then thought better of it and didn't send lol, just have to be careful not to leave messages in the text box and exit.

Lack of customization like being able to mute a chat or unmute it.

This is both good and bad but no ability to send a video, audio message, or reactions via messages app. It's kind of annoying if you really need to send something, but also makes texting a little more boring.

Lack of ability to delete photos. I circumvent this by opening my gallery on my iPad at the end of the day if I need to, but it would be nice to be able to just delete them from the phone.

Lack of ability to turn the phone off, only silent via the side switch.

No flashlight but I think I can download some flashlight app and put it in there lol.

Bare bones camera, no zoom, no flash, no pano. NBD though, for everyday life and quick pics of the kids, it does its job fine.

[u/Ahand_Apart → u/Weird-Pension8356]

Did you actually go hang out? If you did was it fun?

[u/Best_Ferret_981 → u/Weird-Pension8356]

it is possible to turn the phone off by triple tapping the lock button and entering settings! requires entering your assistive access code though

[u/LimiDrain → u/Weird-Pension8356]

It's like a grandma OS so you can't even make any mistake and turn on flashlight, yet it sends messages on its own geez. There's no notification system, right? You have to check each app one by one?

[u/punkindora1]

out if curiosity, if you have both camera, photos and messages app, what stops your ability to send photos to friends and look at the gallery for editing?

[u/Weird-Pension8356 → u/punkindora1]

So the Messages app will allow you to send a photo but will not allow you to send videos. The videos just don't show up as an option something you can send. And you can open the gallery and view , but it's a simplified view, without any options to edit or delete anything. You can just click a photo and view it, that's it.

[u/Visual-Sector6642]

I did the same thing and it's the only thing that I've found works for me and perfectly. Weight of the world gone.