Starting with iOS 10, you can use your iPhone as a magnifier to get a closer look at things that can sometimes be too small to see, unless you’re some kind of human/hawk hybrid.
The iPhone magnifier feature is quick and easy to set up, and it’s useful for a wide variety of situations whether you have problems seeing or not.
After you enable the magnifier, it’s never more than a simple shortcut away, no matter what you might be doing on your iPhone at any given time.
Enabling the iPhone magnifier feature
To enable the magnifier feature on your iPhone, follow these steps:
1) Launch the Settings app and navigate to General → Accessibility → Magnifier.
2) Once you get into the Magnifier preferences pane, turn the Magnifier toggle switch on:
We also suggest you enable the Auto-Brightness feature too so you get the best lighting conditions while using the magnifier on your iPhone.
Now you have the magnifier enabled on your iPhone, so next we’ll talk about how to use it.
Using the iPhone magnifier feature
Once you’ve set everything up with the steps above, all you have to do to launch the magnifier is triple-press your iPhone’s Home or Side button.
For most people, the magnifier should pop right up. If you have also set up other accessibility options on your iPhone, then you might see a pop-up menu first, which asks you what you want to do. If you get the menu, simply tap on the Magnifier button.
Once you’re in the magnifier interface, you’ll notice it looks a lot like the Camera app’s interface, although it’s slightly different:
For example, you’ll see there is a slider bar for adjusting the zoom, and you’ll also see there are buttons to toggle the rear-facing LED torch for visibility and locking the focus so you don’t lose your focal point while you examine something up close.
At the bottom right is another button, which lets you apply filters to the magnifier:
Depending on what something is made out of, its color, or the lighting conditions filters can help improve visibility or enhance details. You can pick from any of the following filter presets:
- None
- White/Blue
- Yellow/Blue
- Grayscale
- Yellow/Black
- Red/Black
In addition, you can adjust the exposure and saturation separately with the two existing sliders, and you can even invert the colors in the image with the button at the bottom left.
Related: How to enable and use screen zoom on your Mac
Will you be enabling the magnifier on your iPhone? You never know when it may come in handy, so discuss in the comments below!