How to Enable Assistive Touch for iPhone

Assistive touch is a feature of the iPhone that allows the user to control the device with a virtual home button. This feature was designed for those who have trouble reaching the buttons on the device, or cannot operate the touch screen very well, but it also has other uses. The most common “other” use for assistive touch is when a lock button, or any other button, malfunctions.

By using the assistive touch function the user can still navigate their iPhone, lock and unlock the device and control other functions such as volume. This feature is a great temporary or permanent fix for when something happens to the iPhone. Follow the guide below to begin using Assistive touch on the iPhone.

How to Enable Assistive Touch

From the iPhone home screen, tap Settings.

 

Select General.

Scroll down and tap Accessibility.

Under the Accessibility tab scroll to the bottom of the page and select Assistive Touch.

 

By default Assistive touch is disabled, to enable the feature turn the slider to the right, On.

After enabling assistive touch a virtual home button like the one in the image below, should appear on the screen of your device. Just like moving apps around on the home screen, the home button can be moved to where it is the most convenient for the user to access and also moved when necessary. The virtual home button appears on top of all apps so while it is accessible at all times, it can also be a pain when trying to play a game or even select options within applications.

To begin using assistive touch tap the virtual home button on your screen. And a menu with all of the available options will appear. Two of the simplest options are Siri and Home. By tapping Siri it will bring up Siri, just as if you had pressed and held the actual home button. And by selecting Home, the action is the same as tapping the home button. This can be useful for those who have a home button that has gone on the fritz.

One of the more detailed options is under the device tab. Tap on favorites for commonly used gestures the user can set up. 

Tap Device.

On this page there are five different options to choose from, select More to view the rest of the options under device.

Four other options are on this last page, if the user chooses not to make a selection tap the arrow to go back a menu.

One last cool feature of assistive touch is custom gestures. These custom gestures allow users to record their own gesture and save it to the favorites tab of assistive touch. To create a custom gesture, tap Favorites.

On the next page tap Add.

The settings page for assistive touch will appear on the screen. To create a gesture, tap or swipe in the highlighted area below. For this example, it is a double tap.

 

After completing the gesture, select Save in the top right hand corner.

 

Enter a name for the newly created gesture and tap Save.

The gesture should now appear in the list under the Assistive Touch settings page.

To use the new gesture tap the virtual home button, select favorites and then tap Double tap.

Position the gesture on an app from the home screen to test if it works correctly.

If the app opens you have successfully created a custom gesture.