Basically, I am looking for a way to lock the home screen icons. Kinda like a child-lock or somesuch. In order to delete icons or folders, some additional action should be required apart from just tap-and-hold. FaceID and a dialog would be preferred.
I’ve been all through the settings screens, but can’t seem to find it. Does it exist?
Thanks gang!
iOS makes the assumption that the user on the phone is the phone owner. The only way I’m aware of to allow a 3rd party to use the phone while limiting access is to use the Accessibility guided access function.
I realise that’s not a direct answer to your question, but just in case that’s kinda what you’re looking for.
Once a user has access to the Home Screen I don’t believe that there’s a built in way to stop the user amending the homescreen or deleting apps (either from the homescreen or from the device) I can see that this could be a useful feature if the usual user had issues with fine motor control.
Dependent on your reasons for wanting this, You may want to have a play with something like JAMF which is a Mobile Device Management (MDM) software which allows control of devices and apps on them. I think that JAMF gives away 3 free device licenses (free for Life) but if I remember correctly, these are for the life of the device so once your device dies, you can’t reuse the free licenses.
Thanks @geoffaire, I feared as much…
It’s actually for my wife. She has excellent fine motor control, but still manages to accidentally move or delete icons/folders in Springboard from time to time. Sometimes simply by carrying her phone around and accidentally touching the screen when the phone isn’t locked. Also, like any sane person, she really hates to rearrange and move things in Springboard, so when this happens, the task of putting stuff back falls on me 
I realise this is a design choice by Apple that we can’t do much to change, but as I’ve not kept up with all the minor updates in the Accessibility and other Settings-sections, I was hoping they’d addressed this issue by now. I don’t think she’s an unique user having challenges with the current way Sprinboard works.
I still think that in Jiggle Mode, there should be the ability to Pin an app to a particular location, so you have to unpin it before moving it.
I know that now you can put an app wherever you want, but the ability to Pin would make it easier to rearrange your screen and maintain some semblance of stability during that reconfiguration.
That would certainly help. Not that I was able to find a “pin” option while messing about in jiggle-mode though. These things really are not very discoverable 
Some of my icons are staying put, others not. I can’t see any properties of any of them that indicates which is which either.
Sorry, I’m not saying that I think it’s there. Rather It’s been an idea I had for about 10 years that I think that Apple should add it!