I finally took the plunge and experimented customizing the control center, at first it took a little trouble. I watched some videos and felt that the sighted ones are having so much fun with it and doing all sorts of customizing. I also read some articles and help pages to be able to finally understand how to customize the Control Center.
I am sure you all know how to do it, but if you are not on IOS 18.1.1 you might not be able to do it. So let me start with how my Control Center looks as of now.
From top to bottom:
amazon Music
Bluetooth
Wifi
Cellular Data
Focus
Screen Recording
Camera
Google Pay
That is everything I need as of now in my Control Center until I wake up and have a fit about something missing.
I really appreciate that I could customize the Control Center to suit my needs but what I did not like about how it looks, by which I mean on how the state of the controls are announced. For example, if BlueTooth/ WiFi/ Cellular Data and Focus are on VO says checked before the control.
How I would like it to be:
Bluetooth ON: Noise Airwave (meaning my Bluetooth is connected to my Noise Airwave device) and is ON.
Wifi ON: Home (meaning Wifi is connected to the home network) and is ON
Cellular ON: 5G (meaning my data is on 5G) and is ON
Focus ON: Work (meaning the current Focus is work) and is ON
Double tapping any of these controls should turn them OFF. Double tapping and long pressing should open other controls for the control like choosing the WiFi network/ Bluetooth Device/ Focus
For now this is it, did not actually try double tapping and long pressing, may be it is possible to achieve what I want for now I only know that those controls are ON as they are checked. So let me know your thoughts about being able to customize the Control Center, are you as excited as I am about it? Would you be able to share your set up? any other cool things to do to make life a bit easier with the phone?
As I write this I remembered that I need to add Be My Eyes to the Control Center
Comments
Multiple pages as of 18.1
I cannot remember the reason now, but when iOS 18.1 first arrived, I had to reset my settings, not do a full factory reset, just reset the settings. When I did this, my control center suddenly gained two more pages. I really like the way it works now, but it does take some getting used to.
The first page is how you would expect control center to look. It has things like cellular, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and I think airplane mode at the top, then some basic play controls, then things like screen orientation lock, focus, and then your shortcuts like flashlight, calendar, etc., etc. this first page is labeled "Favorites".
If I do a three finger swipe up from bottom to top, I will land on page 2. This page is labeled "Now Playing". And as you can imagine, is essentially media controls.
One more swipe up with three fingers, and I land on the third page, labeled "Connectivity".
Connectivity starts out like the first row of the first page of control center, with things like Wi-Fi, cellular, Bluetooth, but also has things like personal hotspot, VPN, AirPlay, and such.
One more thing to note, if I do a four finger single tap toward the top of the screen on any of these control center pages, I am given a couple of buttons. One is a power button, which is essentially a button that lets me shut down my iPhone. Another is a "add controls" button.
So yeah, that is my control center as of iOS 18.1, on an iPhone SE third generation.
Thanks for reading. 🙂👍
A Bit Difficult to Wrap My Head Around But...
I've not customized my Control Center yet, but it might be a good thing to do. I just haven't had a lot of time to play around with my toys as of late. A little bit but I should have more time now that I've pretty much gotten my hearing aids working the way I want them to lol. Trust me, they're awesome but for whatever reason I've become a bit of an earwax collector, lol. But I won't bore everyone with all those gory details. I'll just say that a customizable Control Center is but one of the reasons I love my iPhone. Thank you once again Apple, and keep up the excellent work!
RE: Brian
I messed up the pages, just have Favorites and the now playing screens. Honestly I don't need the now playing screen and trying to figure out how to remove/ delete it. I would surely like the Favorite screen the way you have set it up. I just also figured out you can open additional controls for Bluetooth and WiFi by swiping up when control is in focus, it can also be done by tapping and long pressing on the control.
On your Favorite screen, do you have the controls as they were shown earlier? Like double tapping on the control will toggle ON/ OFF the control?
RE: Ekaj
You will thank yourself after you have customized your control center screen. I also added Be My Eyes now to my control center. So I can get to my music, pay, get assistance and control my connections all in one screen quickly. Trust me this is just so cool to brag about it
My Favorites tab
OK, I am going to try to show below the way my Favorites tab looks on my iPhone SE 2022. So, here we go.
Row 1:
airplane mode (switch button off). AirDrop (switch button on, contacts only). Wi-Fi (switch button on, Brian's Wi-Fi). More controls (button).
Row 2:
Selected, AirPlay audio (button). iPhone, Neven Iliev, Chapter 3 - Part 4. Skip back 60 seconds (button). Play (button). Go forward 60 seconds (button).
Row 3:
Lock Rotation (switch button on). Screen mirroring ((button). Brightness 35% ((adjustable). Volume 62% (adjustable). Selected, focus, do not disturb (button).
Row 4: note this last row is the row with customizable app shortcuts.
Flashlight (switch button off). Timer (button), this is to the right of flashlight. Stopwatch (button), this is to the right of timer.
Screen recording (button)), this is under flashlight. Scan code (button), this is under timer. Recognize music (button), this is under stopwatch. Low Power Mode (button), this ironically is under the page controls.
Hope I did a good enough job explaining my Favorites tab. 😅
Controls @Mister Kayne
My buttons and such work like you suggested above, I can double tap on them, I can flick up or down, or I can double tap and hold to get different results.
HTH