CUPERTINO, Sept. 23 -- The window between a phone leaving your hand and a thief gaining unrestricted access to its contents is measured in seconds. An unlocked iPhone grabbed mid-use is a phone with banking apps open, messages readable, and the authentication layer bypassed before the victim has registered what happened. Apple has been working on closing that window. Code references in iOS 27.2 beta 2, released Monday, show how.

The feature, called AutoLock internally, would automatically lock an iOS 26-era iPhone when the system determines the device has been taken from its owner. Apple has not announced it. It is not enabled for users in the current beta. The code now reveals the mechanism in unusually specific detail. The element that...