How To Unveil The Notifications Screen On iPhone X

The way you access the missed Notifications is one of the few iOS 11 commands that hasn’t been dramatically modified to fit the iPhone X. On all other iPhone models running the 11th iOS generation the Notifications view is unveiled with a swipe-down from the top of the screen, when the device is unlocked, and with a swipe-up from the bottom of the screen if the Apple smartphone is locked.

Notifications on the iPhone X are also available with the help of a down swipe from the top of the OLED display. However, there is a difference. You have to swipe from the left ‘ear’ (or horn) or from the middle, just below the notch. If you swipe downwards from the right-side you’ll bring up the Control Center instead. Yes, it’s surprising that the Notifications panel receives more screen real estate than the Control Center, because the shortcuts panel is usually accessed much more often.

On top of that, reaching up towards the top of the 5.8-inch display is impossible if you want to use the device single-handed. To make things easier you have to use the Reachability trick to bring down the top of the screen and then swipe-down again, from the middle, for either Control Center or Notifications panel.

Fact: Do you know that incoming Messages and any other text Notification displayed on the iPhone X Lock Screen have the text hidden by default? This way you can only read the Preview if you raise your device and glance at it to unlock via Face ID!

Opinion: In my opinion Apple’s engineers should have switched the Control Center and App Switcher gestures. Multitasking on the iPhone X is already handy by switching between apps with the help of the Gesture bar-slide. Sliding-up from the bottom should have remained a gesture assigned to the Control Center, while the App Switcher that is used less often should have taken over the swipe-down from the right ‘ear’. What do you think?

Related: You might also be interested in how to power off the iPhone X, how to screenshot it and how to force restart the Home-button less iPhone!