Hands-On With iOS 11's Revamped, Customizable Control Center - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

Hands-On With iOS 11's Revamped, Customizable Control Center

In iOS 11, the Control Center has seen its third major overhaul in three years, and this time, it's received a drastic redesign with a single page spread and bubble-style icons.

Control Center functionality has also changed significantly, with new 3D Touch options and customizability that allows users to choose to add settings for the features they use most in iOS. Both the redesign and the new 3D Touch options are outlined below in our hands-on video.


Control Center has a love it or hate it look and the customization options may not go as far as some users would have liked, but there are several neat features hidden within that are an improvement over previous Control Center layouts.

For the first time, there's access to a one-tap Low Power Mode setting, and an Apple TV setting brings up a full Apple TV remote that doesn't require an app. There's also a new one-tap screen recording feature that takes a video of whatever you're doing on the iPhone or iPad, and there are an expanded range of settings that cover everything from Accessibility options to HomeKit, Notes, and Text Size. Users can choose just a few settings, or add every single one.

Networking settings, music controls, and options for brightness, volume, AirPlay, rotation lock, and Do Not Disturb are static and can't be hidden or rearranged, but the bottom rows of icons are customizable and can be edited in the Settings app.

Every Control Center setting that's not a simple on/off toggle has 3D Touch functionality. Some, like music, offer expanded options, while others, like brightness and volume, provide access to a larger icon for changing the setting. Still others, like the Apple TV option, offer up a full interface only accessible through 3D Touch (or a long press on devices without it).

On the iPad, Control Center has been baked into the App Switcher. Swiping up on the screen on the iPad now opens App Switcher instead of a full Control Center, with Control Center settings located at the right of the display.

Control Center is likely to see some design refinements over the course of the beta testing period. Right now, the iOS 11 beta is limited to developers, but Apple plans to release a public beta in late June.

We're going to have a full selection of videos covering all of the new features in iOS 11, so make sure to stay tuned to MacRumors.com.

Related Forum: iOS 11

Popular Stories

iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
ios 26 4 yellow

Here Are Apple's Release Notes for iOS 26.4

Wednesday March 18, 2026 11:56 am PDT by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4, which means we're going to see a public launch as soon as next week. The RC versions of the software include Apple's official release notes, giving us final details on what's included in the update. Apple Music - Playlist Playground (beta) generates a playlist from your...
Apple Logo Sketch Feature

Apple Has Now Unveiled Eight New Products This Month

Tuesday March 17, 2026 9:25 am PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping eight new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, and now the AirPods Max 2 this week. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as the iPhone...

Top Rated Comments

macduke Avatar
115 months ago
I'm so glad they finally did this. Some people might not like the look, but I think this opens up the possibility for it to become more modular going forward. Previously it didn't make sense that they didn't use more screen space for the controls as it dimmed the background anyway.

I still don't get why something like low power mode wouldn't be located in the settings toggles group at the top, but whatever. Hopefully in the future we can customize those toggles as well as the locations of everything. I imagine you could drag around elements in the settings app and they would snap into place.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
iapplelove Avatar
115 months ago
"Control center is likely to see some design refinements."

Good.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
macduke Avatar
115 months ago
I don't get it, why couldn't they just have done all this on iOS 11? It seems like this is their fifth try at a CC (it's been there for almost 4 years now? maybe more?), and they still couldn't nail it perfectly. Just chipping lazily away at it piece by piece with each iteration...
But then what would they show in iOS 12? :D
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
115 months ago
I'm so glad they finally did this. Some people might not like the look, but I think this opens up the possibility for it to become more modular going forward. Previously it didn't make sense that they didn't use more screen space for the controls as it dimmed the background anyway.
One advantage I'll be losing with the old CC is in the car I like to leave the Waze app open for navigation (iphone on mount) and overlay the CC music control page over it for audio control. Since the old CC doesn't cover the top of the screen, I can see the next direction in navigation. It was my workaround to have split screen navigation and audio controls on iphone. It would be more ideal of course if there was actually split screen for iphone. This would be my only use case though.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
robertcoogan Avatar
115 months ago
It's just so much clutter. And ugly to boot.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
115 months ago
Wow, the new control center is fugly! (You can tell I dislike the aesthetics a lot because I put an "f" in front of "ugly". Clever huh?)

But in all seriousness, I do hope it gets cleaned up a bit. Either way, I'm just suuuuper glad we can customize it now. Just a few short months ago, a fellow MR member posted a confident explanation on why Apple would never allow us to customize the CC. And look where we are now!
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Related Apple News: World News | South Africa | Local News | Politics | Reviews