The iOS 11 Privacy and Security Settings You Should Set Up Right Now

IOS 11 is here, looking nice.

Love those anemoji.

It's also a good time to make sure your iPhone is secure.

Fortunately all it takes is a few simple settings tweaks.

First, if you've got a four digit PIN on your lock screen,

it's time to upgrade.

IOS also you gives you a choice of a six digit PIN

or a custom alphanumeric password to secure your device.

Go with that one.

A mix of letters and numbers is by far your best option.

Just make sure you don't set it to your pet's name

or your favorite sports team

or anything easily guessable.

And while we're talking home screen,

take a minute to limit what people can access there.

So go into settings, then touch ID and passcode.

There you can disable potentially sensitive things

like your wallet or recent notifications or Siri.

Unless someone coughs up your password first.

All right, are you still in settings?

Good.

Now got to password and security while you're there

and turn on two factor authentication.

With that enabled no one can access your Apple ID

without a special code that gets sent to your phone.

It's not perfect, but it's an important

added layer of protection.

Okay, now two quick steps to help

in case you lose your phone.

First in settings, go to iCloud,

then find my iPhone and turn that on.

That way you can figure out exactly

where that Uber you left it in went.

While you're there you should also enable

send last location, so that if the battery dies

you'll at least have a good sense

of where it was before it tapped out.

Second thing, and this can be a little annoying,

but you should really limit how long your phone

stays awake before auto lock kicks in.

The shortest amount of time IOS gives you

is 30 seconds, which is great.

But,

if that's gonna be too annoying,

go with whatever shortest amount you can stand,

whether it's a minute, two minutes,

whatever works for you.

There are also a couple of brand new IOS 11 features

that you should take advantage of.

First, under settings go to privacy,

then location services.

And from there you can determine whether

each app you own can track your location all the time,

only when you're actively using it,

or my personal favorite, never.

You'll also want to spend some time in Safari settings,

since a lot of new features have your privacy in mind.

Once you're there go ahead and turn on

block pop ups, prevent cross site tracking

and ask websites not to track me.

By doing that you're basically giving

over aggressive advertisers the boot

in a way you could not before.

Finally, and this is mostly for you iPhone X buyers,

congratulations, is face ID.

So yes it has some potential drawbacks,

but the most important thing to know

is that in IOS 11 you can disable it

and touch ID by squeezing the side button

and one of the volume buttons at the same time,

on an iPhone X, 8 or 8 Plus.

For older iPhone models tap the side button five times.

That's important if you think that

the cops are gonna make you use it to open your phone.

Okay.

Your iPhone is now safe and sound.

Now if only they had a setting that kept

the screen from shattering, every time you drop it.

(light syncopated bass strings music)