For years, one of the biggest complaints that we've heard from readers—and that we've voiced ourselves—has been the way iOS buried frequently accessed settings one or two (or more!) screens deep in the Settings app. As Android gained nifty home-screen widgets for tweaking Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and more, complaints about iOS's settings hassle became even more common.
In iOS 7, Apple has at last made the most commonly used settings accessible right from the Home screen. But instead of crowding the home screen itself with widgets, à la Android, iOS takes an Apple-style approach: Swipe up from the bottom of the screen, and a translucent overlay slides up, providing quick access to a slew of settings and functions. Apple calls this overlay Control Center, and you can access it on any screen—even from the lock screen or within apps, if you enable those options in Settings.
Thanks to Control Center, a quick swipe up from the bottom of the screen provides quick access to common settings.
Depending on your device, the layout of Control Center differs, but the options it presents are similar. For starters, it contains all the settings previously found in iOS 6's multitasking bar on the iPad: audio and video playback control (along with a playback-progress indicator), volume level, an AirPlay toggle, screen brightness, and an orientation lock. (On an iPad, which has a side switch that you can set to control either Mute or Lock Rotation, the orientation lock button becomes whatever the side switch isn't. In other words, if you set your iPad's side switch to control screen orientation, this Control Center button becomes a Mute toggle; if you set the switch to mute or unmute, the button controls your orientation lock. On an iPhone or iPod, the button always locks orientation.)
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