iOS 11 Master Class: Controlling The Control Center, Part 1 - Default Controls

Updated 9/21/17 to clarify how Wireless and Bluetooth controls work.

iOS 11 Master Class is a series where I dive deep into a feature of Apple's latest operating system for mobile devices.

When Apple first introduced the Control Center in iOS 10, it was a useful, if not static, collection of icons allowing you to directly manipulate settings and control audio playback. In iOS 11, the Control Center has gotten a major upgrade. And this isn't just a spit-shine where they've shifted icons around. Now, it's a customizable set of icons, with practically everything sporting 3D Touch capability (check out my 3D Touch Guide for a quick rundown on "peek" and "pop"), providing you with fully actionable widgets without having to unlock your phone.

Control Center?

The Control Center is a set of icons and utilities that you can access at any time in iOS 11 by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.

Customizing The Control Center

But first, it's time to customize the Control Center. In iOS 11, you're no longer locked in to the default configuration. Much like the Lock Screen widgets, you can manage what Control Center controls are displayed and in what order.

Go to Settings > Control Screen and press the plus icon next to a control to move it to the list of active controls. Conversely, press the minus icon and confirm the removal to take a control out of rotation. If you'd like to tweak where the control appears, press and hold the list icon to the right and drag it to where you'd like it to appear.

What Can't Be Modified

You might notice that not every Control Center control is in the Settings list. Apple wants to make sure you keep a few things around, no matter what. To that end, no matter how much you poke at the list, you're always going to have the following on the Control Center screen.

Wireless Toggles

That useful collection of icons that lets you control how your iDevice is getting (or isn't getting) data. Airplane Mode, Cellular Data, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth are visible, with a hard press giving you access to the Airdrop and Personal Hotspot icons. You can also see how many Bluetooth devices are connected in the exploded view. Clicking the AirDrop icon will give you additional options for sharing. Unfortunately, you can't modify which controls display in the collapsed control. Which is a shame, because I use AirDrop a lot more than Airplane Mode!

A caveat, toggling the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth controls don't actually disable either. They disconnect you from your current network and devices, respectively. If you need to go radio silent, you'll need to dig down into the settings to disable them.

Music Controls

You might be used to seeing this on the second screen of the iOS 10 Control Center. Thankfully, the mini control has all the same functionality, but condensed down so that there’s no longer a need for a second screen. As with Wireless Toggles, you can hard press the control to get an expanded view of what's playing, as well scrub and volume controls (and yes, I'm still working my way through The Glass Cannon Podcast backlog, we're havin' fun).

Orientation Lock, Do Not Disturb, and Screen Mirroring

Don't want your screen to rotate to Landscape when you tilt your device? Press the lock with the arrow around it. No tricks with this one. It does exactly what it says. Similarly, the Do Not Disturb control doesn't have additional actions, click it to activate the function (though it would be nice if the control took you to the Do Not Disturb settings).

Screen Mirroring will also do exactly what it says and cast your device's screen to an available Apple TV. Hard pressing the control lets you choose what Apple TV to cast to if there are multiple devices available.

Brightness Slider and Volume Control

No big surprises here. Slide up and down on the controls to raise and lower the related settings. Hard pressing each one will launch larger controls that do the same thing. Though the larger Brightness Slider will also give you access to a toggle for Night Shift (which reduces blue light emitted from the display).

That covers all the default Control Center controls. Join me for Part 2 to find out about all the optional controls (including my favorite control ever).