I’ve recently changed from using an iPhone 7 (no notch) to an iPhone 13 (notch) and I lament losing my VPN status icon being visible at all times (now relegated to living in the control centre when pulled down). It’s a bit of a bummer because it’s an extra step (and those steps add up to a lot) to see whether or not I’m connected.
I’ve just used Apple’s feature request website and called them asking for them to consider showing the VPN status icon at all times when a VPN configuration is installed on the phone.
If this is an idea you like, please consider writing or calling them (or both!) so we can maybe get our VPN status icon back.
Post up your feedback ID so others can refer to it. Also consider hopping on the beta once wwdc happens and seeing if it changes and if not filing a feedback in the app. During that cycle is the most likely time to get stuff changed
The worst part about this is that the 13 Pro Max in particular has so much wasted space in its ears. It could easily fit an extra icon on each side. The 12 mini (with the smallest ears of any iPhone) shows just as much info as the iPhone with the biggest ones.
What’s the point? Let me put an extra icon in there if I want to. It’s so dumb.
Also, when the WiFi isn’t working, there’s no indication on the WiFi logo while on the my samsung S21+ whenever the WiFi isn’t working, there’s an error logo on top of the WiFi logo.
This is a small feature but super handy because I keep refreshing Safari thinking that maybe it’s a bug that my pages aren’t loading only to find out that that the WiFi isn’t working.
In the meantime, instead of having to reach the top right corner to pull down the Control Center all the time, you can map a either a double or triple back tap shortcut to trigger it.
Go to Settings/Accessibility/Touch/Back Tap and choose Control Center or a bunch of different actions.
Not quite what you are looking for, but a workaround I found on youtube is to create a shortcut automation which will check if your vpn is on or not when you open an app. This guy uses it to turn on the vpn for apps he needs it on for and then turn off the vpn for those he needs it off for. I guess it depends on what app you use, but in the video the automation opens the vpn app as it doesn’t seem to have shortcut actions, but still works slick all with only needing 2 quick interactions from you, versus the alternative which would be to check if the vpn is on or not (like you OP explained) and then if it is off but you need it on, you’d need to navigate to your vpn app and all that. Here’s the video if you can’t figure it out! https://youtu.be/fNgse\_ACbgw
Note that enabling this accessibility feature spins up a service in the background that constantly processes accelerometer input and feeds it into a ML model to detect taps. It’s not a huge impact on your battery life, but it’s noticeable and you should decide whether it’s worth it.
I honestly am not entirely sure what the value is with using a VPN on iOS is in the first place. What’s the point when apps just track and squeal your region anyway? I keep my vpn active at all times, but I just don’t know if it’s actually doing anything for me or not.
Huh what about Health tracking features that measure your steps or gait or whatever? Don’t they use similar background processes? Or are the back taps something different?
I believe that runs on the motion compressor to grab data and then processed when convenient. But back tap obviously needs to respond immediately (and maybe the model doesn’t run on the coprocessor?)