Want More Privacy? Here's How to Lock and Hide Apps on Your iPhone
Apple has introduced features in iOS 18 that allow users to lock and hide apps on their iPhones for enhanced privacy. Users can secure apps with Face ID or a passcode, preventing unauthorized access. Additionally, hidden apps can be stored in a designated folder, keeping them out of sight from the home screen.
- ▪iOS 18 allows users to lock and hide apps on their iPhones.
- ▪Users can secure apps by requiring Face ID or a passcode for access.
- ▪Hidden apps are stored in a special folder in the App Library and do not appear on the home screen.
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| Original publisher | CNET |
| Canonical URL | https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/want-more-privacy-heres-how-to-lock-snd-hide-apps-on-your-iphone/ |
| Publication time | Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:00:44 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-04-28T10:28:43.855Z |
| Last seen | 2026-04-28T10:28:43.855Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | lObrHgAr6XRk |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
If you lend your iPhone to someone to make a call in your device's Phone app, that person could accidentally see which other apps you have on your home screen. That person could also accidentally open an app like WhatsApp and call someone you went on a date with one time years ago. Luckily, Apple lets you hide and lock apps on your iPhone so you can enjoy a little more privacy. When Apple released iOS 18 in 2024, the tech giant introduced a feature to lock and hide certain apps on your iPhone. That way you can keep others out of your apps. You can also hide certain apps in their own hidden folder so people aren't tempted to open them and invade your privacy. Here's how to lock and hide your iPhone apps for an extra layer of security. How to lock your iPhone apps1. Long press an app.2.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at CNET.
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