Splash guard (iPhone)

CrewNerd’s “splash guard” feature provides a measure of protection against problems caused by rain and water splashes during your workouts. When this feature is enabled, CrewNerd ignores all touch gestures when the timer is running. Another CrewNerd setting determines how you unlock the screen. Depending on the setting you choose, you either unlock by pinching two fingers together on the bottom of the screen, or by pressing one of the up/down volume buttons on the phone.

Unfortunately, the splash guard feature alone can’t solve the problem completely. Certain system gestures are handled by iOS regardless of what app is currently running, and apps have no way to disable these.

But there IS a solution! The “guided access” feature of iOS provides a way to “lock” an application in a way that prevents you from accidentally exiting the app, and disables the kind of system gestures that could cause problems on the water. Once enabled, you are fully protected from water-related problems. The rest of this page describes how to set this up.

iOS – “Guided Access”

The Guided Access feature works differently on different versions of iOS, but the general idea is that it restricts access to a single app, and lets you control what features of the phone’s interface are available, and (optionally) how long the app can be used. For protection from rain and splashes, the key is to lock CrewNerd as the running application, but without limiting touch access or use of the phone’s buttons.

Guided Access will prevent accidental activation of the notification center, etc., while still allowing you to interact with CrewNerd normally. The details of using guided access can change from one iOS release to the next, but Apple has provided a support page where you can select your iOS version and get the correct instructions. Use the drop-down menu at the top of the page to select your iOS version, if different than what’s shown.