Jul 28
A Couple of Awesome iPhone tricks
Hide SMS Notification Popover Without Acknowledging
It’s really annoying when you’re right in the middle of something and an SMS comes in, and you don’t want to tap “View”, but you don’t want to tap “Close” either (because that will remove the count badge and you might forget to go back to it later).
There is a third option. Just lock your screen with the sleep/wake button at the top, then unlock it again. It will take you back to the app you were using without acknowledging the notification.
Universal Inverse Display (Night Mode)
On the Mac, there’s a very useful feature to enable inverse colours by pressing Cmd-Opt-Ctrl-8 (⌘⌥⌃8) which inverts every colour on the screen, like an old colour film negative. This option is fantastic at night when you feel your way in the dark to your desk and want to use the computer without burning your retina so badly you’ll never find your way back to bed.
There’s an equivalent function in the Accessibility settings in iPhone. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Triple-click Home > Toggle White on Black. Then wherever you are in the phone, triple-pressing the physical home button (note: über easy to find in the dark) switches the display.
Because this is universal, you can switch back and forth depending on whether the app you’re using is predominantly dark or light. It’s also handy outside in bright sunlight for very dark apps. It even works on the lock screen!
Enjoy!
Update: I’ve noticed that this does add a tiny delay to the double-press used for fast app switching. Since this is iPhone’s answer to Cmd-Tab (Alt-Tab for Windows users), this little delay could cumulate stress imperceptibly over the day. You have been warned.
