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There are lots of occasions when I would like to be able to temporarily disable touch on my Lumia 950, but leave the screen on.

Probably the most common one is when I am cycling and referring periodically to GMaps navigation. Not only do I need to remove a glove every time I want to unlock the screen, navigation then has to locate me before I can see where I need to go. If I could just leave the screen active, with touch disabled, I'd be much better off.

The same goes for the built-in Microsoft (Nokia) maps app, except in that case, I need to leave the screen active because as soon as you lock it, the bloody thing pauses navigation! As this is the only app I can find that does turn-by-turn voice guidance, I'm pretty stuffed!

One final example is when I'm shopping for groceries, I use Sticky Notes 8 to make a list and keep having to unlock my phone to glance at it as I walk around the store - why can't I just disable touch and be able to see my list for a few minutes!

Any help gratefully received. Rupert.

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This functionality doesn't exist, and would be tricky to implement usefully. Since touch is the primary way you interact with the phone, it's like asking if there's a way to turn off the mouse and keyboard on a PC. How do you turn them back on?

In any case, this would need to be an OS-level feature, something provided by Microsoft rather than by any third-party developer, as it would need to run in the background but intercept touch inputs regardless of what app was running, or would need to disable the touchscreen driver and monitor the hardware buttons for a signal to re-enable it (both are theoretically possible, but requires privileges apps don't get). MS hasn't provided such a feature, so the simple answer is "No".

With that said, you might want to ask specifically about the things of interest to you. For example, I'm pretty sure it's possible to keep using navigation (Maps) while the screen is off, if the app is configured correctly. You may want to ask questions related to your specific needs, and see if there are solutions to them.

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  • Thank you for your response @CBHacking. I feared as much, although the ability to turn touch off is something I've desired for a long time, on numerous phone operating systems. I take your point about it being tricky to implement, although there are combinations of hardware keys that perform other actions, such as soft-reset, so I thought it was worth asking the experts on the off-chance there is a way. I do it regularly on my laptop when drawing or writing with the stylus and for that I've mapped a hotkey. I will ask about configuring Maps to work under the lock screen, cheers.
    – Incredulous one
    May 18, 2018 at 22:01

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