The third pre-release version of iOS 5 shipped yesterday, with it came several new accessibility gestures.
These new gestures allow users to control their iOS devices without any hardware buttons. Users are now able to set up a menu with a variety of different options, that allow them to do simple commands, that would usually require physical input from the user.
The options included in the panel are gestures, favorites, device and home. From these menus users can take actions such as rotation lock, volume up or down, lock and unlock screen and “shake” this option will virtually shake a user’s iPhone or iPad.
While these features are very interesting and seem fun to use, they won’t replace the physical buttons anytime soon. Users may use these gestures when they are for example lying in bed and don’t want to shake their iPhone or iPad. Another scenario could be of a user who has broken one or more of their physical buttons and are looking for an alternative (in this case, it’s free and built right into the system).
Those of us who have iOS 5 beta 3, can download and enjoy these gestures right now! To enable them open the Settings application, click on General –> Accessibility,- > Assistive Touch and then wait for a small circle to appear in the bottom left-hand corner. (via MacStories, 9to5Mac)
Subscribe to our RSS Feed and keep following us on Twitter, Facebook andYouTube for all the latest news, updates and more.