Airport security guy enabled “zoom” mode on iPad, but how??
Discussion
TLDR: Airport security guy inadvertently switched on “zoom” mode on my locked iPad, but how??
Something weird happened to the new iPad Air 5 that Mrs Oxgreen gave me for my birthday and Christmas, and I can’t explain it. I’ve got it back to normal, but I’m intrigued to know how it happened.
And I know exactly when it happened. Coming home from Marrakech a couple of days ago, there was an additional bag check at the departure gate just before boarding the aircraft. I was told to remove all electronic devices from my hand luggage, and the security bloke did some kind of swab on the screens of all my devices. He also wiped my shoes and then inserted the piece of card into a scanner. He did the same to Mrs Oxgreen’s stuff as well.
When he opened the cover of my iPad, it woke up but wouldn’t have unlocked - the Air 5 lacks Face ID so would have required my touch on the top button. However, the iPad did go mental with random actions as he wiped his whatever-it-was up and down the screen. I thought nothing of it, until I got home and found that the iPad screen was zoomed in and I had no idea how to unzoom it. It was also very, very dim. I switched it off and back on, and the zoom returned to normal - but the screen was still very dark.
The only way I found to correct the brightness was to switch off auto-brightness and manually crank the brightness up to 100%. This almost restored normal brightness, but absolutely killed the battery life. The colours also seemed flat and lifeless.
Mrs Oxgreen found the solution: go into Settings->Accessibility->Zoom, and turn it off. Instantly the screen brightens up. There is a filter setting that defaults to “low light”, and this is activated when Zoom is turned on. I’m guessing that this filter doesn’t simply turn down the backlight, but actually lowers the RGB values of every pixel - hence turning the brightness up still results in reduced dynamic range, and still hammers the battery.
But how did this feature get turned on? I’ve never been into that setting, and my old iPad has zoom turned off, so that would have carried over to the new iPad. The security guy must have somehow turned this feature on from the Lock Screen, without the iPad being unlocked. But I can’t see anything in Control Center that does this; is there an undocumented gesture that turns it on? And then he must have done a three-finger double tap and drag, which zoomed the screen in - I understand this bit, but it wouldn’t have happened unless Zoom somehow got enabled in the first place.
I guess the lesson I’ve learned is to make sure my iPad is OFF when entering an airport, not just locked. And if asked to turn it on, immediately turn it back off again before allowing anyone else to touch it.
But how did the security guy switch Zoom to ON, from the Lock Screen on a locked iPad? Obviously I’m not blaming him: he was doing his job and did it entirely inadvertently! I’d just like to understand exactly what happened.
Something weird happened to the new iPad Air 5 that Mrs Oxgreen gave me for my birthday and Christmas, and I can’t explain it. I’ve got it back to normal, but I’m intrigued to know how it happened.
And I know exactly when it happened. Coming home from Marrakech a couple of days ago, there was an additional bag check at the departure gate just before boarding the aircraft. I was told to remove all electronic devices from my hand luggage, and the security bloke did some kind of swab on the screens of all my devices. He also wiped my shoes and then inserted the piece of card into a scanner. He did the same to Mrs Oxgreen’s stuff as well.
When he opened the cover of my iPad, it woke up but wouldn’t have unlocked - the Air 5 lacks Face ID so would have required my touch on the top button. However, the iPad did go mental with random actions as he wiped his whatever-it-was up and down the screen. I thought nothing of it, until I got home and found that the iPad screen was zoomed in and I had no idea how to unzoom it. It was also very, very dim. I switched it off and back on, and the zoom returned to normal - but the screen was still very dark.
The only way I found to correct the brightness was to switch off auto-brightness and manually crank the brightness up to 100%. This almost restored normal brightness, but absolutely killed the battery life. The colours also seemed flat and lifeless.
Mrs Oxgreen found the solution: go into Settings->Accessibility->Zoom, and turn it off. Instantly the screen brightens up. There is a filter setting that defaults to “low light”, and this is activated when Zoom is turned on. I’m guessing that this filter doesn’t simply turn down the backlight, but actually lowers the RGB values of every pixel - hence turning the brightness up still results in reduced dynamic range, and still hammers the battery.
But how did this feature get turned on? I’ve never been into that setting, and my old iPad has zoom turned off, so that would have carried over to the new iPad. The security guy must have somehow turned this feature on from the Lock Screen, without the iPad being unlocked. But I can’t see anything in Control Center that does this; is there an undocumented gesture that turns it on? And then he must have done a three-finger double tap and drag, which zoomed the screen in - I understand this bit, but it wouldn’t have happened unless Zoom somehow got enabled in the first place.
I guess the lesson I’ve learned is to make sure my iPad is OFF when entering an airport, not just locked. And if asked to turn it on, immediately turn it back off again before allowing anyone else to touch it.
But how did the security guy switch Zoom to ON, from the Lock Screen on a locked iPad? Obviously I’m not blaming him: he was doing his job and did it entirely inadvertently! I’d just like to understand exactly what happened.
Dr Mike Oxgreen said:
Ham_and_Jam said:
Three fingered double tap on screen 
I tried that, and it doesn’t work. It doesn’t enable the Zoom mode, and the three-fingered “double-tap-and-drag” doesn’t then perform a zoom.Any other ideas?
Other than the triple tap, it could have been a button mash into / through the control center?
It's worth disabling the Control Center whilst it's locked - This goes for all iOS Devices:
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/disable-control-c...
Keeps you much more secure as stolen / lost devices can't be put into airplane mode etc. whilst locked (To hide from Find my iphone etc.)
It's worth disabling the Control Center whilst it's locked - This goes for all iOS Devices:
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/disable-control-c...
Keeps you much more secure as stolen / lost devices can't be put into airplane mode etc. whilst locked (To hide from Find my iphone etc.)
new_bloke said:
Triple click on the top button. (iPad Air 5 doesn't have a home button, right?)
Bingo!If I cover my finger with a cloth (so it doesn’t do Touch ID) and triple click the top button (no home button, as you say), that toggles Zoom!
So somehow he managed to triple-click the top button, and then while wiping his swab he did a three-finger double-tap and drag to actually zoom the screen. A bit of a freak occurrence!
Haltamer said:
Other than the triple tap, it could have been a button mash into / through the control center?
It's worth disabling the Control Center whilst it's locked - This goes for all iOS Devices:
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/disable-control-c...
Keeps you much more secure as stolen / lost devices can't be put into airplane mode etc. whilst locked (To hide from Find my iphone etc.)
I like that idea. Think I’ll do it, thanks!It's worth disabling the Control Center whilst it's locked - This goes for all iOS Devices:
https://www.macrumors.com/how-to/disable-control-c...
Keeps you much more secure as stolen / lost devices can't be put into airplane mode etc. whilst locked (To hide from Find my iphone etc.)
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