5 iPhone Behaviors You Can Turn Off In 60 Seconds

Your iPhone is, by default, trying to be helpful. But "helpful" can mean "changing the word you typed without asking," "joining a coffee-shop Wi-Fi you'd rather avoid," or "pinging you with fifty notifications before breakfast."

Apple knows each of these can be switched off. They just do not make it obvious. Here are the five most common iPhone behaviours that annoy seniors, and exactly where to tap to fix each one. None takes more than sixty seconds.

1. Turn off Auto-Correct (the one that changes "Colin" to "Colon")

Auto-Correct is the feature that "fixes" what you type as you type it. For short texts this is helpful. For proper names, dialect words, and anything technical, it is maddening — the classic example being messages that suddenly change a family member's name into something unprintable.

How to turn it off

1. Open Settings
2. Tap General
3. Tap Keyboard
4. Find Auto-Correction and slide the toggle to off (grey, not green)

You can also turn off Auto-Capitalisation in the same menu, and the Predictive Text bar above the keyboard. Many seniors prefer all three off — your typing becomes exactly what you type, and only that.

Tip: If you want to keep Auto-Correct on for messages but off for, say, writing a document, leave it on and learn the trick: when the word gets changed, tap the "X" on the little popup that appears, and iPhone will stop changing that specific word in the future.

2. Stop the iPhone auto-joining every Wi-Fi network you pass

By default, once you connect to a Wi-Fi network, your iPhone remembers it and rejoins whenever it's in range. That is fine for your home and a close friend's house. It is not fine for that coffee-shop Wi-Fi you used once last year — especially if it had no password. Open networks are a well-known route for small scams.

How to stop auto-joining networks you do not trust

1. Open Settings
2. Tap Wi-Fi
3. At the bottom, find Auto-Join Hotspot and set it to "Ask to Join"
4. To remove networks you no longer need: tap the small "i" next to a saved network → tap Forget This Network

A good rule: only keep your home Wi-Fi, your children's Wi-Fi, and perhaps your favourite café. Every other one can be forgotten. If you're worried about public Wi-Fi safety, our beginner's guide to VPNs explains when you actually need one.

3. Quiet the notifications flood

Every new app you install arrives with notifications switched on. A few apps turn into dozens of alerts a day — little red numbers on your Home Screen, banners across the top while you read, sounds you did not ask for.

How to prune notifications in one sweep

1. Open Settings
2. Tap Notifications
3. Scroll through the list. For each app, tap it and either:

• Turn Allow Notifications off entirely (for anything you never need buzzed about — games, shopping apps, news apps)
• OR leave it on but turn off Sounds and Badges (so you only see a gentle banner)

Apps worth keeping full notifications on: Messages, Phone, your bank app, WhatsApp or FaceTime, and Find My (in case a family member shares their location with you).

Apps worth turning off entirely: Shopping apps, news apps, games, "offers" apps, most social-media apps. You can check them when you choose to, not when they choose to.

After ten minutes of this, your phone becomes a much calmer place. You will probably miss nothing important.

4. Stop accidental swipes to the Home Screen / Control Centre

Two common accidental actions on iPhone:

• Swiping from the bottom while reading and landing back on the Home Screen
• Swiping down from the top-right and opening Control Centre when you meant to scroll

You cannot fully disable either gesture, but you can reduce accidents dramatically.

Option A — Use a case with a firmer lip

The single best fix is a case that sits slightly above the screen edge. Your finger catches the lip and does not swipe in from the edge. Any well-reviewed case from Otterbox, Spigen, or Apple's own silicone case works.

Option B — Enable Guided Access for reading

If you mostly want the phone to stay in one app — for example, reading a book or watching a video — Guided Access locks it there:

1. Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access → turn on
2. Set a passcode
3. While in any app, triple-click the side button to start Guided Access. Triple-click again to exit.

This is also very handy when handing the phone to a grandchild.

Option C — Make the keyboard bigger so you type more accurately

Settings → Display & Brightness → Text Size → drag the slider up. Every element including the keyboard gets larger and swipes from the edge become less common.

5. Turn off "always-on" location sharing

By default, many apps ask for your location "Always" rather than "While Using." That means they can follow you around even when you're not using them. A weather app does not need to know where you are at 3 in the morning.

How to review which apps track you

1. Settings → Privacy & Security → Location Services
2. You'll see a list of every app and its current permission
3. Tap each one. Choose one of:

• Never — for apps that never need location (games, most shopping apps, your calculator)
• Ask Next Time Or When I Share — for apps you use occasionally
• While Using the App — for apps that genuinely need location (Maps, Uber)
• Always — reserve this only for Find My and similar safety apps

The 5-minute cleanup: Go through the whole list and set everything to either "Never" or "While Using." You will find apps you forgot existed still have Always access.

If you want a deeper sweep of what each app knows about you, the US Federal Trade Commission's guide on app privacy is plain-English and short.

Bonus — four more quick wins

While you're in Settings, these take ten seconds each:

• Settings → Sounds & Haptics → Ringtone — change it if your current one startles you.
• Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Bold Text — turn it on. Every letter becomes thicker and easier to read.
• Settings → Mail → Preferences → Ask Before Deleting — turn on if you've ever deleted an email by mistake.
• Settings → General → AirDrop → Contacts Only — so strangers nearby cannot send you random files.

What if a setting is missing?

iPhone menus move around slightly between iOS versions. If you can't find something, swipe down on the main Settings screen and type the setting's name in the search box at the top. iPhone will show you exactly where it is.

If you're on an older iPhone and wondering if you should update, our guide to why your phone feels slow covers when OS updates help and when they don't.

Android users: we have a matching guide, 5 Android behaviours that drive seniors crazy, for anyone with a phone in the mixed-family household.

Bottom line

Your iPhone is not trying to annoy you — it arrives set up for the average 30-year-old. Ten minutes in Settings turns it into an iPhone set up for you.

Settings → General → Keyboard → turn off Auto-Correct. Start there. You will notice the difference within an hour.

✅ Reviewed by Eleanor Shaw — techfor60s editorial desk, last verified 2026-04-18.