Ever faced a situation when you needed to quickly use the flashlight on your iPhone? Those dark situations during a sudden power cut or movie theatre may require you to pull out the iPhone to use the torch. Thankfully, Apple has added quick shortcuts throughout the UI to use the flashlight function. In this post, we will guide you through four different ways to convert your iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max or any iPhone X series with the latest iOS 13 into a flashlight.
One can turn on flashlight from the lock screen, Control Center, iOS Today View, via Siri, and even set Siri Shortcuts for it. Let’s get started.
Turn Your iPhone into a Flashlight
1. Use Flashlight from the iPhone Lock screen
Apple has added two quick shortcuts on the lock screen, flashlight and camera. Anyone can access them without unlocking the iPhone. Use the power button or tap to wake function to turn on the display and long press on the flashlight icon to switch on the torch on the iPhone.
It’s the quickest way to use the flashlight when the iPhone is locked. Unfortunately, one can’t change the shortcut position on the lock screen or replace them with other shortcuts from the iPhone Settings menu.
2. Access Flashlight from the iOS Control Center
By default, Apple has integrated flashlight shortcut in the Control Center. One can swipe down from the upper right corner of the screen and access the flashlight function. Tap on it to turn on the flashlight and even better, you can long-press the toggle and adjust the intensity of the light.
If the option is not showing up or you want to change the position of the control position, then launch the Settings app on your iPhone and navigate to Control Center > Customize Controls menu. Here, you will find the list of controls for the Control Center. Find the Torch icon and tap on the ‘+’ button to add it to the menu. Use drag and drop function to adjust the Torch position in the Control Center.
3. Ask Siri to Perform the Job
With each iteration of iOS, Apple is adding more functions to its voice assistant Siri. Starting with the iOS 12, you can ask Siri to turn on/off the flashlight of the iPhone.
Activate Siri via holding the power button or use the phrase, ‘Hey Siri’ to wake it up. Next, say ‘Turn on flashlight’ to switch on the torch and spell out ‘Hey Siri, turn off flashlight’ to turn it off. There is no way to bright or dim the flashlight using Siri.
Here are the alternate phases you can use to turn on/off the flashlight.
- ‘Hey Siri, enable/disable Torch’
- ‘Hey Siri, flashlight on/off’
- ‘Hey Siri, torch on/off’
There’s a catch though. Siri needs an active internet connection to intercept flashlight commands.
4. Create a Shortcut for Flashlight
In 2018, Apple’s iOS 12 update introduced the Siri Shortcuts app. The app is Apple’s IFTTT (If This Then That) take with Siri. With Siri Shortcuts, you can create a shortcut for the flashlight on/off toggles and place it on the home screen. One can even access the option from the iOS Today View menu and the default iOS share menu. Follow the steps below to set it up.
Step 1: If the app is missing from your iPhone, then download the Shortcuts app from the App Store.
Step 2: Open the Shortcuts app and tap on the Create Shortcut button.
Step 3: Select the three-dot menu above and rename the shortcut as ‘Flashlight on’.
Step 4: Toggle on ‘Show in Share Sheet’ to make the shortcut available in the iOS share menu.
Step 5: Select the ‘Add to Home Screen’ option to create a shortcut on the iPhone Home screen, and tap on the done button.
Step 6: Tap ‘+’ icon and search for Torch in the search bar.
Step 7: Keep the Torch-on option and select done.
Now, you can see and access the ‘Flashlight on’ shortcut on the home screen as well as in the iOS share menu. You can create the same shortcut for turning off the flashlight too. Follow the steps above to step 6 and rename the shortcut to ‘Flashlight off’. In Step 7, keep the Torch-off option and select done.
To access the shortcuts from the iOS widget panel, swipe left and scroll down to edit option. Select edit and tap on the ‘+’ icon beside the Siri Shortcuts app. It will get added to the list of app widgets. Use drag and drop to adjust the widget position in the Today view. From the widget, one can access the created shortcuts to run the script and convert their iPhone into a flashlight.
➤ Shortcuts: Download
Watch the video below for step-by-step instructions:
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Use Flashlight On the Go
Which option do you find the quickest and most convenient to convert the iPhone into a flashlight? Drop your views in the comments section below.
