As a new iPhone user, I recently used AirPort Utility 5.5.2 to disable Access Control because I was having difficulty finding the phone's Media Access Control address.

I have since found it in iPhone -> Settings -> General -> About -> Wi-Fi Address and enabled Access Control again for the devices which can join the home network with the password.

My question is whether using both a strong password and access control are good practices?

Back up everything you can't afford to lose: documents, mail, movies, music, photos, and other data and settings.