Blog: iPod

Do you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod with broken buttons? Do you want an alternate way of accessing features without using the buttons? Go to Settings, General, Accessibility, AssistiveTouch, and Set to On [more]

“AssistiveTouch allows you to use your iPhone if you have difficulty touching the screen or if you require an adaptive accessory.”

Turning on AssistiveTouch gives you a circle “button” on your screen that you can use to complete functions that real buttons would perform. You can move the circle around on your screen if you need to access that part of the screen for some other items.  

You can use AssistiveTouch to lock the screen (circle “button”, Device icon, and Lock screen icon), set mute, change volume, and other items. If it is your lock screen button that does not work, you can use AssistiveTouch to take a screen capture pic. Start by pressing the circle “button”, then Device icon, then press and hold normal Home button, and finally press the Lock Screen icon on AssistiveTouch. Also, you can use AssistiveTouch to do a power off by pressing the circle “button”, Device icon, and press and hold the Lock Screen icon until the “slide to power off” message appears.


 

I recently helped a customer having trouble with FaceTime and iMessage not working with his iPod touch. He was able to browse the web and get to the App Store, but the FaceTime and iMessage applications would not work. I connected my cell phone and was able to use FaceTime, a WiFi only application. I assumed this meant the problem was with his iPod, not his wireless Internet. However, his iPod worked correctly when he connected to a different wireless network. The problem fixed itself for about a week at his house, then started happening again. I did some reading and found that this could have been caused by DNS. I changed the DNS servers on his router to use different DNS servers. Immediately the problem was fixed.

Thinking back on my testing, I did not take into account that my phone could have been using 3G DNS servers during the first test. The lesson here is to be careful when using cell phones to test wireless connectivity.