The iPhone X has been a great change since Apple launched the first model of the world's most famous smartphone, more than ten years ago. Not only is it a new design without frames, but Apple has removed the start button, and this in addition to the aesthetic change implies that the way in which we handle the device also changes.
Close applications, open multitasking, reachability, switch between applications, the control center, the notification center or even turn off the device are functions that are performed differently on the iPhone X to how we are used since the first iPhone appeared. In this video and article we tell you all the changes so that you can manage the iPhone X from day one.
Multitasking and switching applications with gestures
There is no start button, there is no longer that atrocious fear of some users who used the virtual button on the screen from the first day so that they did not break the physical button of the iPhone. Finally, after years looking for applications in Cydia through the ailbreak, we can use our iPhone completely through gestures. Close an application, open multitasking and switch between applications is fast and very simple thanks to the gestures:
- Close applications by sliding from the bottom of the screen up
- Open multitasking with the same gesture but keeping pressed at the end in the middle of the screen
- Change applications by sliding at the bottom of the screen, from left to right.
There is another gesture that Apple does not tell us, but that allows us to open multitasking faster than with the official gesture, and it is sliding from the lower left corner to the upper right corner, diagonally. With this we will open multitasking almost instantly, a gesture that you get used to is much more comfortable than having to swipe halfway down the screen and hold on a second.
As for the change of applications, the gesture of sliding along the bottom edge of the screen from left to right passes you to the application you were using previously, and if you repeat you go through all the applications in chronological order, the most recent before. If once in an app you make the opposite gesture, from right to left, you will return to the previous one, and so on, until the moment you use an application. Once an application has already been used for something, it becomes the first one in chronological order and the gesture from right to left is no longer useful, until you repeat the operation again.
Activate the screen with one touch
For several generations the iPhone activates its screen by moving it (from iPhone 6s onwards). If you have your iPhone on the table and take it to look at it you will not need to do anything to make the screen turn on. But also now the iPhone X allows you to activate the screen by touching it, with a small tap on it. In addition, the side button will also turn on the screen if we press it.
In addition we are on the lock screen with two new shortcuts: camera and flashlight. The camera had been with us for a while and the swipe gesture from right to left opened the application directly to capture photos or videos, but now we also have this new option. Both buttons, so to the camera with the flashlight, are activated by performing 3D Touch on them, that is, not only touching them but pressing hard on the screen. Really comfortable that the two functions are accessible from the lock screen and not even have to deploy the control center to open them.
Control center, widgets and notification center
These three classic elements of iOS have also been somewhat modified with the new iPhone X. The control center is perhaps the most disconcerting element at first for those who take the iPhone X without knowing anything about their changes, because he gestured to deploy it It is radically different. If we used the option of swiping from bottom to top on any iOS screen to display the control center, now it is achieved by sliding from the top of the screen, upper right corner, down.
And it must be done from the upper right, because if we do it from any other part of the upper screen what will open to us will be the notification center, which is identical to the lock screen in iOS 11, even with the shortcuts to Flashlight and camera. By default the notification center only shows the recent notifications, if we want to see the oldest ones, we must swipe from the bottom up to be displayed, if any. Making 3D Touch on an “x” in the notification center will give us the option to delete all notifications at once.
And where are the widgets? Both on the lock screen and on the springboard this element does not undergo changes, it is still “on the left”. From the main desktop, from the lock screen or from the notification center we can open the widget screen sliding from left to right, and in that same screen we can edit them, adding or removing so that it stays to our liking.
Turn off, screenshot, Apple Pay and Siri
Notice that in all this time we have not talked about any physical button, and it is the main feature of this iPhone X. But there is still a button that serves certain functions, such as Siri, Apple Pay, turn off the device or take a screenshot: the side button. And its operation has changed so much that it is one of the most confusing at the beginning.
To pay with Apple Pay we must now launch the function in a similar way to how it is used on the Apple Watch from the beginning: press the side button twice. We will be identified by Face ID and then we can pay at the card reader terminal. Before the iPhone was brought closer to the Apple Pay terminal, it opened directly, but because we had to consciously put the fingerprint on the Touch ID. Since facial recognition is now almost instantaneous when looking at the iPhone, iOS asks us to be the ones who consciously activate Apple Pay to avoid problems.
Siri is still used through the voice command “Hey Siri”, provided we configure it during the initial customization of the iOS settings on our iPhone. But we can also use a physical button to open the Apple virtual assistant: by pressing and holding the side button. This is no longer the gesture of turning off the device, but to ask Siri for something.
And how to turn off the terminal? Well, at the same time pressing a volume button (whatever) and the side button. The iOS emergency screen will open with the option to make an emergency call or turn off the iPhone. Remember that if this screen appears Face ID it will be deactivated until you enter your unlock code again.
Finally, the screenshot also changes with the iPhone X, and is now done by pressing the side button and the volume up button. As has already happened since the launch of iOS 11, we can edit that screenshot, crop, add annotations, etc. Then share it wherever we want.
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