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How To Use Gestures To Control The Apple iPhone X

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Everyone loves Apple's flagship phone, the iPhone X, but without a Home button, our years of double-clicking and long-pressing to activate various iOS shortcuts has been thrown out the window. Even getting to the Control Center is different! Here's everything you need to know to navigate through the iPhone X.

You'll never guess what new piece of hardware sends you a TON of notifications...

Anthony Karcz

Control Center

Before you use Face ID to unlock the iPhone X, there's plenty you can do. The Control Center lives on, but how you get to it is slightly different. Now you'll need to swipe down from right-hand corner.

Interestingly, Apple has decided to put the most used Control Center apps, Flashlight and Camera, on the Lock screen. You can access either from their respective icons (you can still get to the Camera app via a left swipe, though). These icons do not have 3D Touch enabled, but the respective Control Center icons still do.

Notifications

No big surprises here, except you now have to be particular about which corner you swipe from. After you've unlocked your iPhone X, swipe down from the left-hand corner to see your Notifications.

Home

By now you've likely figured out how to get Home (since the iPhone X walks you through that part of the OS in its first time activation). Swipe up from bottom, no matter where you're at, and you'll go Home. Just keep in mind that "bottom" is relative and that if you're in a landscape-oriented game like Hearthstone, you'll need to use the bottom there.

I'll be honest, this is the gesture that drove me the battiest when I first started using the X, but now, whenever I use my wife's iPhone 8, it makes my nose wrinkle in disgust having to use the virtual Home button.

Yeah, even when I research Hearthstone, I still suck at it.

Anthony Karcz

App Switching

I do miss the double-click gesture to access the app switcher. While the X's solution works, it just isn't as intuitive to me. To get to your "how do I have all this crap open?" app carousel, hold and swipe up from the bottom. Swipe back and forth to browse the open apps.

App Closing

This is the trickiest one for a lot of people. After all, that "swipe up" to dismiss a program gesture was supremely satisfying and well used by anyone trying to eck out just a little more battery life out of their iPhone. Even if the "closing apps saves battery life" idea has been debunked, there are still times that you need to kill and relaunch a misbehaving program. After you hold and swipe up from bottom, long press on the app you want to kill.

Lock

Some things never change. The Lock button still locks your iPhone (unless it's activating Siri...more on that in a sec). Press the Lock button on the right-hand side of the iPhone X to lock your iPhone. But don't hold it down, because then you'll activate...

Your friend at the end.

Anthony Karcz

Hey Siri

To launch your ever-learning-refuses-to-learn-how-to-pronounce-your-last-name-even-though-you-trained-it-a-dozen-times virtual assistant, click and hold the Lock button on the right-hand side of the X.

Power Off/Reboot

So if the Lock button locks the phone or activates Siri, how the ever-clicking-huck do you perform a power off or reboot on the iPhone X? You've got to be a little more deliberate (and you'll likely need both hands).

Press and quickly release the Volume Up button on the left-hand side, then do the same for the Volume Down button. Immediately press and hold the Lock button and you'll be greeted with the familiar Slide to Power Off button.

If your X is stuck and you're trying to perform a reboot (you might also see this referred to as a Force Restart), do the above, then hold the Lock button. After about 10 seconds, the display will shut off. Keep holding the Lock button and release it when the Apple boot screen appears.

I'll be back with more tips for using your iPhone X in the coming weeks. In the meantime, if you just can't handle not having a Home button, read my article on how to get a virtual one back!

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