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iOS 11 guide: welcome to the new Control Center

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Get to grips with the updated shortcuts

In iOS 11, Control Center has been redesigned. The icon-focused approach is cleaner and has been condensed once more into a single panel. It’s now easier to access many of the great shortcuts in Control Center, such as the music player controls and the orientation lock.

As before, Control Center is summoned by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.  It now fills the entire display, rather than just covering the bottom half, which provides a lot more room than before.

All the old favorites are here, including toggles for Airplane mode and Do Not Disturb mode. You can swipe up or down on the new brightness and volume panels to increase or decrease those settings accordingly with a single touch.

3D Touch

Those who have a device with pressure-sending 3D Touch technology – that’s all of Apple’s main iPhones since the 6s – are able to press harder on many of these icons to unveil a secondary layer of controls. Those with iPads or older devices can achieve the same effect with a long press.

In this way, Apple has been able to cram even more shortcuts into Control Center. For example, hard pressing any of the connection buttons gives you quick access to AirDrop and Personal Hotspot, while hard pressing the Torch icon allows you to set the intensity of the LED flash.

Customization

It’s not just the design that’s changed – you can now choose which buttons you see in Control Center, and there are a host of new capabilities you can add for quick access. It’s really handy!

First, launch the Settings app, then tap Control Center. On the next menu, tap Customize Controls.

Here, you’ll see options with either a red – symbol or a green + symbol. Tap the former to remove from the Control Center and the latter to add.

Most default icons can’t be removed, but some less essential options like Torch, Timer, and Camera can be. Meanwhile, new items like Apple TV Remote and Low Power Mode can be added.

On an iPad, the process is the same but some of the available controls vary.