Hide SMS, Apps, Camera, Settings on Windows Phone 8.1

If you ever wanted to hide certain number of Apps, your personal SMS and even camera on your Windows Phone from others, Microsoft rolled out Apps Corner in the recent update which lets you choose what somebody can see and use when he is using your phone.

This is more than Kids Corner but less than what your phone completely offers to you, so you can avoid people from fiddling with your phone and private data.

Apps Corner is a new way to setup a custom start screen with full control on which apps show up, which phones settings can be accessed, control on the camera and even search. Best part, if you have multiple Windows Phone at your home, you can share the settings with them easily.

Note: You need Windows Phone 8.1 Update for this.

Setting up Apps Corner

Settings > Apps Corner
Tap the label which says Apps, and add apps which you want to be accessed.
Done that, decide if you want to people to access Action Centre. Useful if you want them to connect with WIFI etc. If yes, then you can choose if settings will be available. Turning off action centre, takes away the access of settings automatically.

Last place of control is Advance. It allows you to turn off Camera, Search, Start and Back button. You can also control if one can change the size of the tile and its position.

Done this, pin it to start screen. If you want to launch the Apps Corner, there is the launch button in the menu bar.

How does it look when in Apps Corner:

I am very impressed with it. Its so much restricted that no personal data is revealed. Anybody using your phone in Apps Corner mode will not be able to make a call, see your SMS or any notification with action center completely gone. Here is a video demo of Apps Corner:

How to exit from Apps Corner:

Long Press the power button and you will have an option to exit from Apps Corner by swiping to right. The second option is to shutdown the phone. This is visible only when you have apps corner enabled. It was smart to use the Power button to exit. Chances are less that people will actually find it.

How do you share your Apps Corner Settings:

Anybody using a Windows Phone but not very geeky to set it up by himself, can get an excellent help from your. The Apps Corner settings can be exported and imported using SD Card.

Settings > Apps Corner > Advanced > Export to SD Card / Import to SD Card.

The only catch is you need SD card for this to work on both the phones. Most of the high end and low end phones have SD card except few like the 1020 which will not get this advantage.

What do you think of Apps Corner. Share with us in comments!