The iPhone X ushers in a new age of all display, notches, facial recognition, Animoji, and new gestures for controlling everything.
You may find yourself confused by how to do things without a home button and notice many features have been moved around. To help you get the hang of things quickly, we've compiled the 12 best hidden tips that'll help you master your iPhone X.
We know, there's a learning curve, and nobody likes relearning things. But we promise it'll be worth it. So take a deep breath and let's do this together.
Open the App Switcher like a pro
Now that there's no home button, you've got to learn a whole new set of gestures, and opening the App Switcher can be tricky. Apple tells you to swipe up from the gesture bar towards the center of the screen, and then wait for the App Switcher to appear when you feel a little vibration. This is not only slow, but hard to pull off. Instead, swipe up and at an arc towards the right or left (if you're a lefty) and, voila!Bring back the home button (sort of)
Honestly, you get used to not having a home button pretty quickly. But if you simply can't live without it, there is a way to bring it back (albeit in virtual form).
Go to General > Accessibility > AssistiveTouch and turn it on. You'll now see a virtual home button that you can customize to activate shortcuts.
You can set the virtual button to go home with a single-tap, double-tap, long press, or 3D Touch. Or set the button for other shortcuts like launching Control Center. Additionally, if you're worried about screen-burn in, we recommend lowering the "Idle Opacity" setting below the 40 percent default.
In some ways this virtual home button is more versatile than a physical one. You don't have to place it where the real button used to be — it can be place anywhere along the sides of the display.
- Unlock with Face ID faster
Novice users will think there's only one right way to unlock the iPhone X: raise it and then swipe up after the Face ID padlock has opened. Seasoned iPhone X users already know of a faster way: raise and swipe.
That's right, Face ID is usually so accurate that you can just swipe up — no need to wait for the padlock icon to open — when the TrueDepth camera is held directly in front of your face. You save a half a second, but when you're unlocking your phone all day long, they add up.
Show battery percentage
iOS doesn't display the battery percentage by default, but you could go into the Settings app and turn it on. On the iPhone X, the setting's been removed. But have no fear. You can still see the battery percentage by swiping down on the right side of the notch. It's now incorporated into the Control Center.How to disable Face ID in an instant
If for whatever reason you find yourself in a situation where you don't want Face ID to be your primary form of security — like if you're being held captive somewhere and someone has your phone and could force you to look at it — you can quickly deactivate it.
Quickly press the power button (officially called the "Side Button") five times and it'll automatically turn Face ID off and default to your passcode to unlock. Entering your passcode will re-activate Face ID.
- Flip quickly between apps
You should already know this trick, but you may have missed it during setup. Because who doesn't swipe through the tutorials to hurry up and get to the phone?
Swipe right on the gesture bar from the home screen and you'll see that you can quickly flip between suspended apps. Additionally, you can swipe left and right once you've flipped to an app that wasn't the last one opened.
- Save up to 60% battery life
We've been consistently impressed with how long the iPhone X lasts. On many occasions, it lasts up to a day and a half.
Putting you phone in low power mode will extend the battery life even further. But you can extend battery life even more, by up to 60 percent according to AppleInsider's tests, simply by using black wallpaper, inverting colors to create a pseudo "dark mode," and by turning on grayscale mode.
These extra power-savings are the result of the iPhone X's OLED display. Unlike traditional LCD screens, which have pixels that are backlit across the board, the pixels on OLED displays are individually lit. Black pixels are essentially "off" and not lit, therefore conserving power.
- Make Control Center easier to reach
Accessing the Control Center on the iPhone X is not exactly intuitive, especially with one hand. Good thing you can make it easier to call up with Reachability.
The setting's turned off by default. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Reachability.
Now, when you activate Reachability (swipe down on the gesture bar), the entire screen will slide down and you can swipe down right above the upper right app icons.
Sure, it's a two-swipe process now, but it's better than fumbling with one hand and accidentally dropping and smashing your iPhone X.