Locking down your smartphone

Smartphones and tablets are great for adults and teens but they also have a unique fascination for small children. Those bright screens, touch controls,  and easy-to-hold shapes and sizes make them perfect playthings for small hands and inquisitive minds.

Fortunately, there are several tools we can use to lock down our phones when we pass them over to our younger kids. Here are some suggestions based on the four popular operating systems:

Android

While most Android phones don’t have built-in parental controls, there are some excellent free apps like Kids Place and Kid Mode, which combines pre-loaded games and apps with a child lock feature. Keep in mind these aren’t child monitoring apps, although Kid Mode allows you to upgrade to a more robust suite of parental controls with a premium membership. Instead, they act very much like Kids Corner for Windows Phone, restricting access to a pre-populated area.

iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch)

The recently-released iOS 7 and earlier versions of Apple’s mobile operating system have a limited set of parental controls, which restrict how various features are used. Most of these controls consist of disabling features, like the camera, Safari browsing, or access to the iTunes Store.

There is also an Allowed Content feature, which gives you the ability to restrict the type of content that is accessed or downloaded from the iTunes Store. For example, you can restrict access to songs with explicit lyrics, or filter movies, TV shows and apps according to their age ratings. You also have the ability to turn off app purchases, or require a password every time your child tries to make a purchase.

iOS 7 also extends the Allowed Content feature to web sites. The options are "All Websites," which means there are no restrictions in place, or "Limit Adult Content," which automatically limits access to web sites with known adult content. This option also blocks certain search terms like "sexy pictures." Parents also have the ability to allow individually specified web sites and name web sites that iOS will "never allow."

BlackBerry

BlackBerry OS users (5.0 or later) have access to Parental Controls, either as a built-in app, a free update, or a free download through BlackBerry App World. Again, the majority of controls consist of limiting access to existing features such as the camera, although there are also blocking tools for phone calls and other types of communication.