How to prevent iPhone from turning off when locked?

It would really be very interesting if we could prevent it from turning off if the screen is locked.

I am not sure if it will necessarily “brick your phone” if you can’t turn off when when there is an issue. Having had my phone stolen yesterday, I am absolutely of the view there should be a way to disable the power button should I choose to do so.

The person who stole from me yesterday definitely didn’t carry around faraday bag, and I’d doubt they knew what a faraday bag was - there are many opportunistic thieves looking to make a quick buck and this feature will help prevent it / deter it.

it’s very likely the thief would’ve thrown my phone away on the street if they thought they can’t turn it off and would get tracked. yes, it may be damaged beyond repair but over time might make iPhones less attractive to steal.

While this is not currently possible without a jailbroken or modified version of iOS, I hope this can help:

(This guide is designed for devices using Face ID or devices using iOS 17, some steps may be different on previous iOS releases.)

1.) Go to Settings, and search "Face ID & Passcode" and enter your passcode.

2.) Scroll down and find "ALLOW ACCESS WHEN LOCKED" just below "Voice Dial"

3.) Turn off Control Center and whatever else you please. This will not allow a potential thief to turn off your location services such as mobile data or WiFi without a correct PIN or Face ID.

Now that the device cannot have its location services turned off without proper authentication, let's ensure the device's location stays on after power off:

1.) On the Settings front page, tap your name at the very top.

2.) Tap "Find My". This is a green icon that resembles a radar scanner.

3.) Tap "Find My iPhone". Ensure that all three sliders are checked on. This will ensure your device not only sends its location at low battery, but will continue to do so for a period of time after the device is shut down.

Enjoy! Now, in the event your device is stolen or lost, you can easily check its location with another Apple device.

You are not getting our point. This suggestion is not new....been around for many years.

Apple has not acted upon it....for good reason.....and I doubt that they ever will, but you can wish all you want.

I mean to prevent someone from turning off when locked. That’s in case it’s stolen

Taking away the ability for a thief to power off the phone will not help you.

You do know that thieves are very fond of placing stolen phones in a special type of bag that will not allow the phone to send or receive a signal, correct?

In other words, the thief can very easily prevent you from accessing your phone without turning it off.

You are not getting my point, those users who want this feature will trigger it and those who do not need it will disable this feature. At least give the access to user's wish.

In the event the thief places the device in an EMF and/or RFID blocking container, you will be unable to track its location.

Still, the above guide will prepare you for common cases of thieving. It is better than not being prepared at all. With that being said, keeping an active eye on the device is the most effective method of preventing your device from being swiped or pickpocketed.

Doesn't really matter whether it would be interesting or not. It's not going to happen.

it will cause problems, I accept that but if you lost your phone that will cost more than the phone price. At least after going to the store, it will be fine but if a thief steals then all will go sadly.

huandney wrote:

This could be easily resolved by adding a user-choice option, meaning in the iPhone settings, we could enable forced restart only with another computer. This option wouldn't be the default setting.

Tell Apple:

Product Feedback - Apple

But it is unlikely they will decide to add this "feature".

Most iphones still in use can still be tracked using find my even when powered off.

wittikay wrote:

Enjoy! Now, in the event your device is stolen or lost, you can easily check its location with another Apple device.

Never, ever attempt to retrieve a stolen device yourself. People have been killed doing that.

gowtham137 wrote:

I am not sure if it will necessarily “brick your phone” if you can’t turn off when when there is an issue. Having had my phone stolen yesterday, I am absolutely of the view there should be a way to disable the power button should I choose to do so.

The person who stole from me yesterday definitely didn’t carry around faraday bag, and I’d doubt they knew what a faraday bag was - there are many opportunistic thieves looking to make a quick buck and this feature will help prevent it / deter it.

it’s very likely the thief would’ve thrown my phone away on the street if they thought they can’t turn it off and would get tracked. yes, it may be damaged beyond repair but over time might make iPhones less attractive to steal.

If the phone is locked up or frozen to the point that you need to forcibly reboot it, you can't turn the option off if such an option existed.

Activation lock has already gone a long long way toward reducing iPhone thefts. What you're suggesting would create far more problems than it would solve.

princedirak wrote:

I have lost my iPhone with iCloud find activated, but i am not able to track my phone as it is shutdown by the thief and currently offline. So my question is to how helpfull is this feature if someone can easyly turn off an iPhone while locked, making it unbale to be tracked ?

Even if there had been a way to prevent the phone from being powered off, it would have eventually run out of battery. Or, the thieves could have put it in a container that would have prevented it from connecting to the network. They don't need to physically turn it off. I don't know why that concept is so difficult.

lazaro0390 wrote:

Do you know any Apple developer that could at least make a setting to require a PIN to be able to NOT turn of the iPhone??

No, it's not possible.

i see that you talk about Faraday bags and signal blocking devices but in the real world most people dont use that.

But thieves do.