Assistive Touch: Accessibility for the iPhone

"Assistive Touch" is a clever operating aid for iPhone, iPad and iPod. It replaces several multi-touch gestures: With one tap you can give commands that were previously only possible with several fingers.

How to activate "Assistive Touch"

• Open the "Settings" of your iPhone.
• Select the "General" tab and call up the "Accessibility".
• Here you will find the "Assistive Touch". Activate the function and under "Accessibility" tap the home triple click or "Accessibility shortcut".
• Select "Assistive Touch" here to start the application in the future with a triple click on the home button.

The main commands of "Assistive Touch"

In the settings you can program functions for the "Assistive Touch" yourself. Here are the most important commands:

• The volume and screen settings are hidden behind "Devices".
• Zooming is saved under "Favorites": Instead of two fingers, you can zoom with just one touch.
• You can swipe "gestures" across the screen. You can find them under "Devices". Here you can choose between two, three, four and five fingers for wiping.

Create your own assistive touch gestures

• To create your own commands for "Assistive Touch", open the "Settings" of your iPhone.
• Select "General" and under "Accessibility" tap "Assistive Touch".
• Here you will find the button "Create new gesture". First you have to show the gesture and then name it.
• You will then find your command in the "Assistive Touch" menu under "Favorites".

Tip: You can also create your own vibration pattern on the iPhone. You can find more information here.