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How to Use Zoom Feature in iPhone/iPad

Last Updated Jul 24, 2017
Written By Tweak Library Team

Apple took great strides for low-vision users by enhancing the Accessibility features in iOS 7 by adding button shapes, bold keyboard text, dark colors, and much more. With iOS 8, Apple makes life easier for the optically impaired users too. Zoom, the built-in magnifier feature, that makes everything on your iPhone/iPad’s screen bigger and much easier to read. It even includes a floating window that allows users to zoom in on a particular part of the screen. While this is geared towards low-vision users, it also comes in fairly useful for more healthy eyes too.
Zoom is an accessibility feature that can zoom into things like maps, photos, and web pages simply by moving your thumb and pointer finger away from each other to zoom in and pinch them together to zoom out. It defaults to 5x magnification but can be set from 1x to 15x, depending on your preference and needs. When zoomed in, all the regular gestures, like pinching, swiping, and tapping, will work the same.

Also Read: How to Use AssistiveTouch on iPhone

Here’s how you can enable the Zoom mode on your iPhone/iPad.

Tap on Settings from the Home screen of your iPhone.

Select the General option.

Scroll down and tap on the Accessibility option.

From the Accessibility screen and then from the Vision section select the Zoom option.

Toggle ON the Zoom Option.

Once you’ve got Zoom enabled, you will find a small bubble under the zoom rectangle you can tab this bubble to view zoom options.

Here’s how to use the Zoom feature:

Double tap with three fingers anywhere on the screen to enable and disable zoom.
Drag three fingers around the screen to pan around and move to another area of the screen.
Use one or two fingers to scroll in the particular section on the screen.
Tap and hold the anchor to drag the magnifying glass up and down the screen.

Let us now look at what each of these Zoom settings means and how to configure them to suit your own requirements.

Follow Focus will make the Zoom window jump to the text you’re typing. However, you won’t be able to zoom in on the keyboard as you type.

Turning on Smart Typing will switch to Window Zoom when a keyboard appears and move the Window so that the text is zoomed but the keyboard is not.

When the Show Controller is turned on, Idle Visibility appears. This reduces the visibility of the Zoom controller when the controller is not in use. The slider’s default is 50%.

You can choose to zoom in on the whole screen or just within a movable window.

If you need the colors inverted on the zoomed-in area or if you need grayscale or low light, you can activate those options and they’ll only apply to what’s in the Zoom area.