LOCKED ON!
Your iPhone’s Lock button has four secret tricks including genius ‘car sickness’ mode that saves you from nausea
The fourth trick could save you in an emergency
YOUR iPhone's Side Button isn't just for locking the screen – it's hiding at least four very handy tricks.
With the right combination of settings and "clicks", you can make it do some surprising things, including helping you dodge car sickness.
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TRIPLE-CLICK IT!
The first three tricks on our list all relate to a feature called the Accessibility Shortcut.
This lets you assign different functions to the Side Button, all activated with a quick "triple click".
There are dozens of options, but there are particularly handy.
First, you'll want to go to Settings > Accessibility > Accessibility Shortcut.
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You'll see a long list of features that you can add to the Side Button.
It'll still work for locking your iPhone, but if you triple-click it then it'll activate the feature of your choice.
And if you choose multiple options, triple-clicking will launch a pop-up menu with your selections – letting you tap the one you want at the time.
So what can you do with it?
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One of the best features is the iPhone Background Sounds, which can help you concentrate or even get to sleep.
You can choose a default Background Sound from Settings > Accessibility > Audio & Visual > Background Sounds.
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The current options include:
- Balanced Noise
- Bright Noise
- Dark Noise
- Ocean
- Rain
- Stream
- Night
- Fire
It's not just for sleep either: you can have Background Sounds playing over the top of podcasts and other types of media too.
Second is Vehicle Motion Cues, which is built to combat the nausea from using your iPhone while in a moving car.
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"If you experience discomfort when you use iPhone while riding as a passenger in a car or other on-road vehicle, you can turn on Vehicle Motion Cues – onscreen cues that may help reduce motion sickness," Apple explains.
"Vehicle Motion Cues appear as animated dots on the edges of the screen that represent how the vehicle is moving without interfering with what you’re doing on iPhone."
It's not a 100% guarantee that your car sickness will go away, but it's worth trying next time you're a passenger.
THE FULL LIST OF ACCESSIBILITY SHORTCUTS
Here's the current list...
- Apple Watch Mirroring
- AssistiveTouch
- Background Sounds
- Classic Invert
- Colour Filters
- Control Nearby Devices
- Eye Tracking
- Full Keyboard Access
- Hover Typing
- Increase Contrast
- Left/Right Balance
- Dim Flashing Lights
- Live Captions
- Magnifier
- Live Recognition
- Live Speech
- Music Haptics
- Reduce Motion
- Reduce Transparency
- Reduce White Point
- Smart Invert
- Speak Screen
- Switch Control
- Vehicle Motion Cues
- Voice Control
- VoiceOver
- Zoom
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Third is the Magnifier, which is also very useful in certain situations.
It pulls up a pared-down version of your iPhone's camera designed specifically around zooming in on small things.
So maybe you're trying to read some Ikea instructions, look at a tiny bit of text on the back of an appliance, or just zoom in on a detailed photo you've seen in a book.
Whatever the case, being able to pull up the Magnifier very quickly can be really handy.
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FIVE-CLICK EMERGENCY
The fourth trick is an entirely separate feature that's linked to Apple's Emergency SOS.
Go into Settings > Emergency SOS, and then switch on the feature "Call with 5 Button Presses".
Now when you rapidly press the side button five times, it'll trigger your iPhone's Emergency SOS response.
This will cause a countdown to start and an alarm will sound.
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Once the countdown is over, your iPhone will automatically call emergency services.
You can also set it up to alert your emergency contacts (which you can add on the same settings page).
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It's a very quick way to contact emergency services without having to navigate to the phone app and type in a number.
You should also read our guide on how to "quietly" call emergency services using an iPhone.
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