How to turn off iPhone when Assistive Access enabled

Hi Mike -

So, you might want to check the phone to see if it’s actually powered down after the steps you described. I tried it only to accidentally find that the screen does go dark as if it powered down but if I pressed any button or touched the screen I found that it was in fact not powered down; the Lock Screen immediately displayed. After that discovery I also tested the shutdown via triple click - Settings - Shutdown and discover the same results; it doesn’t actually shut down. The only way I could shutdown was to first exit assistive access and then shut down by conventional means. This was all on iPhone 12 Pro, iOS 17.3.1. I’m going to report this as a bug.

You might try this to see if you get the same results. Good luck.

Thanks for the thoughts and reply. FYI - Assistive Touch is actually disabled when Assistive Access is turned on. I would venture to think that Assistive Access versus Assistive Touch are geared toward different accessibility needs, which is why they don't seem to function together. It makes sense in this particular use case as someone with the cognitive impairment would have difficulty understanding the gestures needed with Assistive Touch. Thank you all the same!

Thank very much for the tip! That's a way that would seem very useful for a caregiver, which I may indeed use, although for the person with cognitive disabilities it would seem to have the potential to either be difficult to remember or to be able to step through that Siri shut down sequence.

I think I can envision or understand why Apple might have left shut down off as an option in Assistive Access, as I can envision potential risks around someone with cognitive disabilities unintentionally shutting down their phone and losing ability to use it or for others, such as the caregiver, to be able to use Find My to find that person by their phone if they should be lost, or the holder of the phone no understanding how to turn the phone back on to communicate. Still, it would be nice to at least have it as an option, to let a caregiver decide if they wanted to make that ability visible to the person. Just my thought as one caregiver.