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Any way to disable the "slide to unlock" feature?

CubeHacker

CubeHacker

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Apr 22, 2003
1,245
257
It looked so cool when Steve first did it. But after doing it dozens of times a day, it gets old very, very quickly. There really doesn't seem to be that much of a reason for it. The touch screen only reacts to skin, so its not like its going to be dialing numbers in my pocket or bouncing around in someone's purse. I can quickly lock the phone by pressing the top "lock" button. It would be nice if I could just as easily unlock it straight to the home screen by pressing that button too.

Does anyone else feel the same way, or know of a solution?
 
About a week and a half after the launch of the original iPhone, there was a story on here of someone whose iPhone called his boss in his pocket... as he was talking to his girlfriend about getting a different job.

It worked out amicably for both of them, but it happened.
 
If you jailbreak your iPhone, you can get a feature from Cydia called "Tap to unlock". And instead of sliding, you just tap on the screen, and it'll unlock.
 
There are many ways around the slide, but all of them are only possible on a jailbroken phone.

QuickUnlock lets you unlock with a triple click of the home button.

There are several "tap to unlock" apps which replace the slider with an area you tap.

My current favorite is Wide Sliders, which seems more "secure" but takes hardly any effort. Pic attached.
 

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Those are all interesting. But I was kinda hoping for some kind of unlock that doesn't involve the screen at all. Clicking the home button 3 times seems a bit on the annoying side too. I would prefer to just click the lock button to lock the phone, and once more to unlock the phone. Some Nokia phones have a lock switch/slider that work like that and its very convenient.
 
CubeHacker said:
Those are all interesting. But I was kinda hoping for some kind of unlock that doesn't involve the screen at all. Clicking the home button 3 times seems a bit on the annoying side too. I would prefer to just click the lock button to lock the phone, and once more to unlock the phone. Some Nokia phones have a lock switch/slider that work like that and its very convenient.
Click to expand...


Step one: sell your iPhone because you cant handle "slide to unlock"
step two: buy a flip phone, oh wait, you'll have to flip that. Buy any other phone... oh wait, you'll have to push buttons to activate it.
step three: commit suicide because simple things make your life hard to live.
 
army91c said:
Step one: sell your iPhone because you cant handle "slide to unlock"
step two: buy a flip phone, oh wait, you'll have to flip that. Buy any other phone... oh wait, you'll have to push buttons to activate it.
step three: commit suicide because simple things make your life hard to live.
Click to expand...

step four: Attempt to get into heaven. P.S., God uses an iPhone and likes the slide to unlock feature, in fact he even has it pass coded because he doesn't give a damn how long it takes to get to the home screen.
 
Aaaaanyway...

Don't know of one that uses the lock button. If you want to unlock the phone, you're going to be touching the screen to use it, so it doesn't seem like a chore to me to touch the screen you're going to be touching anyway. Comprende?
 
army91c said:
Step one: sell your iPhone because you cant handle "slide to unlock"
step two: buy a flip phone, oh wait, you'll have to flip that. Buy any other phone... oh wait, you'll have to push buttons to activate it.
step three: commit suicide because simple things make your life hard to live.
Click to expand...

Step four: grow up. The OP has a legit question. Just because it doesn't mean much to you doesn't make it any less of a legit question. If you think the question is silly, just move on and dont be an ass.

Fact is, I don't like it either, especially since I have a passcode. The triple click seems good to me. Perhaps I'll jailbreak now.
 
Can't you just go to Settings > General > Auto-Lock > Never ?

Am I missing something?

EDIT: I see, you want to be able to have it locked, and then unlock it without sliding. I thought you just wanted to prevent it from locking when you go away. Nevermind...
 
slu said:
Step four: grow up. The OP has a legit question. Just because it doesn't mean much to you doesn't make it any less of a legit question. If you think the question is silly, just move on and dont be an ass.

Fact is, I don't like it either, especially since I have a passcode. The triple click seems good to me. Perhaps I'll jailbreak now.
Click to expand...

That's the best ya got? Man, keep trying.

If you read the guys post, EVERYTHING he has to do to open the iPhone is to hard..... Yeah, my post was right on.
 
What really gets me about this thread is that ANY phone that has a locking feature (i.e. not a flip phone) is going to have some key combination to unlock, which is much more complicated than the slide with the iPhone.
 
I got bored with the slide to unlock technique, but it works. If you don't feel like sliding, you can tap the slider with one finger, and tap the end of the track with another finger and it will jump to the other finger and unlock it.

By the way... the home button, then slide to unlock is so engraved in my head now that I do it without even noticing it. Heck, half the time I don't even look at the screen while I'm doing it... so it's almost as if there's no slide to unlock anyway... so I don't care really.

Perhaps, they could make it so that if you have a password, the slide to unlock part doesn't even exist... it would immediately show the password number pad. That would likely prevent accidentally unlocking the phone and it would put less strain on unlocking a password protected phone.
 
TheSpaz said:
I got bored with the slide to unlock technique, but it works. If you don't feel like sliding, you can tap the slider with one finger, and tap the end of the track with another finger and it will jump to the other finger and unlock it.
Click to expand...

Ooooooh, that's clever. I like this :)
 
TheSpaz said:
By the way... the home button, then slide to unlock is so engraved in my head now that I do it without even noticing it. Heck, half the time I don't even look at the screen while I'm doing it... so it's almost as if there's no slide to unlock anyway... so I don't care really.
Click to expand...


Me too. I don't even notice it now.
 
I don't mind the slide to unlock feature, but I sort of wish you could angle it a bit.

I like the Pre's set-up, which to be a dot that you slide out of a semi circle in any direction you like.
 
Nanook said:
There are many ways around the slide, but all of them are only possible on a jailbroken phone.

QuickUnlock lets you unlock with a triple click of the home button.
Click to expand...

(snip)

Another vote for QuickUnlock. Works great, and is hardly "on the annoying side";
it's easier than you think.

I have the Mac startup sound as my unlock sound, and it's fairly loud (and a
real crowd-pleaser - at least among geeks). I use QuickUnlock when in the library
or other quiet spots where I do not wish to create a sensation. ;)
 
Small White Car said:
And he was given legit answers, but then he complained that clicking the home button 3 times was too much work.

THAT's when the jokes came out.

No one made fun of the question.
Click to expand...

Clicking 3 times wouldn't be ideal. Wear out my home button 3 times as fast? No thank you. ;)
 
TheSpaz said:
If you don't feel like sliding, you can tap the slider with one finger, and tap the end of the track with another finger and it will jump to the other finger and unlock it.
Click to expand...

Wow this is interesting, but then again it requires two hands so the slide would just be easier. I agree with the op though it would be nice to just click the lock button twice to unlock the phone...something so small but would be neat.
 
TheSpaz said:
By the way... the home button, then slide to unlock is so engraved in my head now that I do it without even noticing it. Heck, half the time I don't even look at the screen while I'm doing it... so it's almost as if there's no slide to unlock anyway...
Click to expand...
So true. It's now second nature for me to do it.
 
lostprophet894 said:
What really gets me about this thread is that ANY phone that has a locking feature (i.e. not a flip phone) is going to have some key combination to unlock, which is much more complicated than the slide with the iPhone.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily true. On a slide phone, unlocking is generally easier because its just one action (slide up) instead of two. Some nokia phones (slides and bar phones), have a lock switch on the side which allows you lock and unlock with ease with just one click.

Generally, I don't mind the side to unlock. But when it comes to listening to music and using the iPod functionality, it gets in the way far too often. As far as I can tell, the only thing you can do with the phone locked is change the volume when listening to music. Every time I want to change a track, skip a song, change artist, I have to slide to unlock. That gets old fast. At least on Sony Ericsson phones, you can press and hold the volume up/down to skip tracks forward and backward. I don't see anything like that on the iPhone, unless i'm missing something?
 
CubeHacker said:
Not necessarily true. On a slide phone, unlocking is generally easier because its just one action (slide up) instead of two. Some nokia phones (slides and bar phones), have a lock switch on the side which allows you lock and unlock with ease with just one click.

Generally, I don't mind the side to unlock. But when it comes to listening to music and using the iPod functionality, it gets in the way far too often. As far as I can tell, the only thing you can do with the phone locked is change the volume when listening to music. Every time I want to change a track, skip a song, change artist, I have to slide to unlock. That gets old fast. At least on Sony Ericsson phones, you can press and hold the volume up/down to skip tracks forward and backward. I don't see anything like that on the iPhone, unless i'm missing something?
Click to expand...

If you are using the included headphones, I believe you can double click the mic thingy on the right headphone to go to the next track.
 
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