Tech Tips: Rotor on iOS

Tech Tips: Rotor on iOS

Contributed by Jerry Price, Assistive Technology Specialist

The rotor gesture for the iPhone is considered to be the hardest move to master.  Place your thumb and forefinger in the center of the screen and turn to the left (counterclockwise).  As you turn, you should hear items such as language, speaking rate, words, characters, etc.  Of these, the speaking rate is probably the most important to a new smartphone user.  Once you hear the device say speaking rate, then you can either flick up with one finger to increase the speaking rate or flick down with one finger to decrease it.  Once the speaking rate is set, you may want to do the rotor move again so that the focus in no longer on that option.  

There is a second option if the rotor gesture should prove to be too difficult.  Place your forefinger from one hand in the center of your phone.  Now take the forefinger from your other hand and begin to make a semi-circle above the finger that is planted on the phone.  You should hear the options mentioned above.

If you want to add or subtract the options mentioned in rotor, ask Siri to launch your voiceover settings and swipe to rotor.  Now you can select or deselect items by doing one finger double tap on each item presented.