Thursday, March 19, 2020

See and Feel Your Phone Ring



A recent question prompts this article. A friend of a friend has an iPhone where the camera flash lights up when the phone rings and wanted to know how to stop it. The reverse of these instructions are the obvious answer but what about those who never knew their iPhone could even do this.

Let's learn how to "hear" and "see" your phone ring. The "hear" is accomplished by having the iPhone vibrate during a ring. The "see" is done by having the camera's LED flash light up and blink during the ring. 

Each of these features can be done one at a time or in addition to the regular ring.

Both are found in Settings. Vibrate is in Sounds & Haptics while LED Flash is in Audio/Visual.


Add "vibrate" to the iPhone ringtone
Open Settings.
Swipe down and tap on Sound & Haptics (make sure at least Vibrate on Silent is turned on if not Vibrate on Ring too)
Tap Ringtone, then Vibration.
Or, Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Vibrate. Turn on Vibrate on Ring and/or Vibrate on Silent.

Tip: At the bottom, tap Create New Vibration.
Tap to create a new pattern, tap Stop, then Play to review it, or Record to try again.



Flash the LED for alerts
If you can’t hear the sounds that announce incoming calls and other alerts, iPhone can flash its LED (next to the camera lens on the back of iPhone). The LED flashes only if iPhone is locked.

Tip: LED Flash for Alerts is a useful feature for anyone who might miss the tones associated with calls and other alerts in a noisy environment.
Go to Settings  > Accessibility > Audio/Visual, then turn on LED Flash for Alerts.
To prevent LED flashes when iPhone is in silent mode, turn off Flash on Silent.