iPhone tips: A quicker way to turn off the “flashlight”

Has this ever happened to you? You’re sneaking around the office of a suspected killer looking for evidence and going through his files using your iPhone as a flashlight, and suddenly you hear a noise and see a shadow moving under the door. So you quickly try to turn off the light, but your iPhone has locked while you were thumbing through files. For some reason TouchID is not recognizing your fingerprint, so you have to enter your code manually (damn, what was it again?) to get to the home screen while you listen to someone turning the doorknob. A notification window pops up reminding you to tell your cop friend where you were going, so you have to dismiss it. You swipe up to access Control Center to hit the flashlight button, but…

…it’s too late, the suspect saw the light and shot you. Well, no, it has never happened to me either…but it COULD…maybe.

This scenario assumes you have not allowed access to Control Center from the Lock Screen, but even if you do, this handy tip will help save your life by turning off the light in ONE gesture.

When you are at the Lock Screen, simply flick up on the camera icon in the lower right of the screen. You don’t even need to push it all the way until it engages the camera, just a centimeter or two, and the flashlight will turn off and the little camera icon will bounce back down to the corner. Having dowsed your light, you can now quietly slip into the closet and watch the killer hide the murder weapon through the keyhole while you text your cop friend to come save you and nab the guy.

I may have to stop watching so many police/detective/crime solving TV shows.