Control Center (Apple)

Control Center
	Control Center on an iPhone 13 running iOS 16
Developer(s)	Apple Inc.
Operating system	iOS 7 and later; iPadOS; macOS 11 Big Sur and later; visionOS;

Control Center (or Control Centre in British English, Australian English, and Canadian English) is a feature of Apple Inc.'s iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and visionOS operating systems. It was introduced as part of iOS 7, released on September 18, 2013.^[1] In iOS 7, it replaces the control pages found in previous versions. It gives iOS and iPadOS devices direct access to important settings for the device by swiping down from the top right corner on the iPhone X and newer, and on all iPad models starting with iOS 12 or iPadOS, with previous models using a swipe from the bottom of the screen. It is similar to the SBSettings tweak for iOS jailbreaking.^[2] Control Center was also added to Macs in macOS 11 Big Sur, released on November 12, 2020.

Usage

iOS and iPadOS

Control Center gives iOS and iPadOS users quick access to commonly used controls and apps. By swiping up from any screen–including the Lock screen (if the control center is set to be accessed from the lock screen)–users can do such things as switch on Airplane mode, turn Wi-Fi on or off, adjust the display brightness and similar basic functions of the device.^[3]^[4]

Since iOS 7, it has also included an integrated flashlight function to operate the reverse camera's flash LED as a flashlight.^[3]^[4] The flashlight feature is only available on iPhone and iPod Touch, and iPad Pro. Beginning with iOS 9.3, a Night Shift toggle became available through the Control Center on all iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad models that have an Apple A7 chip or later.

Other functions are offered, such as the ability to turn Bluetooth and Do Not Disturb on or off; lock the screen's orientation; play, pause, or skip a song, see what is playing; connect to AirPlay-enabled devices; and quickly access the clock, calculator, and camera apps.^[3]^[4] Users also have access to AirDrop, previously only available on Macs and newly added to iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch models using the Lightning connector in iOS 7, as a method of transferring files between Apple devices.^[3]^[4]^[5]

macOS

Introduced with macOS 11 Big Sur in 2020, Control Center on macOS gives users quick access to many system-level settings such as WiFi, Bluetooth, and Airdrop, as well as display brightness and system volume. The Control Center icon is on the right side of the menu bar.^[6]

visionOS

Apple's spatial computing platform launched with Control Center, providing access to similar settings as iOS, as well as visionOS-specific features such as guest user access, Mac virtual display, and travel mode.

Design

iOS

In iOS 7 through iOS 9, Control Center featured a single-paged slide up panel with a blurred background, which provided a layer of translucency over the content below. The design for the most part remained the same, aside from a few small, occasional changes. Due to the intense resources needed to create a blurred effect, iPhone 4, iPad 2, and iPad 3 do not feature a translucent background, and instead feature a grey background with slight transparency without blur.

In iOS 10, Control Center morphed into a card-like design with a white background, and was separated into three separate cards accessible by swiping horizontally. The first card consisted of main device controls, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Do Not Disturb, while the second page was dedicated to media controls, and the third page for controlling HomeKit enabled devices linked in the Home application.

Control Center received a significant redesign in iOS 11, unifying its different pages into one and allowing users to 3D Touch (or long press on devices without 3D Touch)^[7] the icons for additional options, and vertical sliders allow users to adjust volume and brightness.^[8] Control Center is customizable via the Settings app, and allows for a wider range of settings features to be shown,^[9]^[7] including cellular service, Low Power Mode, and a shortcut to the Notes app.^[10]

iOS 12, released in 2018, brought a few new additions to Control Center, with Do Not Disturb being updated to allow 3D Touching or long pressing the icon to access a menu of preset durations of a Do Not Disturb session. With the 2020 release of iOS 14 and iPadOS 14, Control Center received a few other new additions, like sleep tracking, sound recognition and a Shazam toggle. While in 2021, Control Center received a new Focus option and a new Keyboard Brightness option in iOS 15 and iPadOS 15. And in 2022, in iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, Control Center's sound recognition Shazam feature integrated its history with the main Shazam application's history, instead of the histories being separated.

During WWDC 2024, a new version of Control Center was announced to be added to iOS 18 and iPadOS 18.^[11] The new Control Center is revamped with a new design featuring more circular buttons and controls. It also now has multiple pages of different classes of controls, separating controls for connectivity, media, home, a user's favorite controls, and even an option to create new groups or pages personalized by the user. It also allows editing the size of each control (With exceptions being the volume and brightness sliders, among others) using a "wiggle mode" similar to editing the iPhone and iPad Home Screen. There is also a small "+" button in the top left that allows for opening the controls gallery and adding more controls, including 3rd-party controls for specific apps.

visionOS

In visionOS 1, the Control Center is accessed by looking up and selecting the Control Center icon (a downward-facing chevron) that appears at the top of the users' view.^[12] in visionOS 2, access to Control Center has been replaced with a new hand gesture.^[13]

Reception

Control Center has received generally positive reviews. In contrast for the user having to access the Settings application to change most preferences, Darrell Etherington of TechCrunch thought that "separating [Control Center] from that function and making it accessible throughout the iOS user interface via a simple swipe up from bottom is a really big improvement."^[14]

The iOS 11 update was criticized for changing the way the buttons for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth work; more specifically, the toggles would disconnect devices from Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, while leaving the radios on. The Electronic Frontier Foundation stated that this change not only hurt battery life, but was also bad for security, describing the buttons as turning Wi-Fi and Bluetooth "off-ish" (greyed out, but not crossed out, as it would appear if switched off directly from the Settings app), as well as further criticizing the connections resuming at 5:00 am every day.^[15]