No more enlarged enlarged time, date and battery percentage

[macstatic]

I remember being able to press on one of the icons in the upper menu bar in my iPad (typically the time, date or battery percentage) and an enlarged version would be shown in the middle of the screen. For some reason this is no longer possible and I have no idea why. Pehaps I've messed with some settings.
To me it would make sense to have this feature somewhere in the "Accessibility" setting ("Settings" app), but I've tried just about everything to no avail.
I'm on iOS 14.8 on an iPad Mini (5th generation).

 

[cupcakes2000]

I have to say I have never noticed this feature, on or off!

 

[Mr.Blacky]

I believe you either had some jailbreak hack, or you're misremembering things. Because what you describe, was never a stock iOS-/iPadOS feature.

 

[macstatic]

That's strange.
No, my iPad isn't jailbroken in any way. I'm pretty sure I remember this correctly because I found it very convenient to check the battery percentage while charging without reaching for my glasses.

 

[macstatic]

Ah! I figured it out (and I wasn't imagining it ).

1) open the "Settings" app
2) go to "Display & brightness"
3) Go to "Text size"
4) adjust the text size to a little more than halfway to the right side (i.e. all text becomes a little larger)

Once that's done you can touch ANY of the status bar icons/text and it will display bigger in the middle of the screen.

 

[Mr.Blacky]

Ah! I figured it out (and I wasn't imagining it ).

1) open the "Settings" app
2) go to "Display & brightness"
3) Go to "Text size"
4) adjust the text size to a little more than halfway to the right side (i.e. all text becomes a little larger)

Once that's done you can touch ANY of the status bar icons/text and it will display bigger in the middle of the screen.

If this ever worked, it doesn't do so in iPadOS 15 anymore.

 

[macstatic]

Really?
Did you try exactly what I wrote above?
Regarding step 4, perhaps try a larger font (it's hard to explain the size where this feature kicks in as there's no value in that slider). If it still won't work with the largest font size I guess you're right.

Good thing I haven't yet upgraded to IOS 15 (I'm still at 14.8) if you're right about this feature missing.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Hmm.

I can’t get this to happen on mine

Also on 14.8

 

[Mr.Blacky]

Really?
Did you try exactly what I wrote above?
Regarding step 4, perhaps try a larger font (it's hard to explain the size where this feature kicks in as there's no value in that slider). If it still won't work with the largest font size I guess you're right.

Good thing I haven't yet upgraded to IOS 15 (I'm still at 14.8) if you're right about this feature missing.

I have tried it again with every text size and it still doesn't work. Could you post a short video showing this?

 

[macstatic]

Very strange.
There's nothing more I did than what I explained in post #6 here.
Maybe it only works in combination with another setting, or maybe just on my particular iPad screen size (iPad Mini 5th generation). I have no idea, and I can't remember how I discovered this feature either.
I tried it once again while adjusting the text size. I have to go about 3/4 of the maximum font size. If I make it smaller nothing happens when I press the status bar icons.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Very strange.
There's nothing more I did than what I explained in post #6 here.
Maybe it only works in combination with another setting, or maybe just on my particular iPad screen size (iPad Mini 5th generation). I have no idea, and I can't remember how I discovered this feature either.
I tried it once again while adjusting the text size. I have to go about 3/4 of the maximum font size. If I make it smaller nothing happens when I press the status bar icons.

Can you take a video?

 

[macstatic]

OK. I did manage to make a screen-video of this, transferred it to my Mac only to realize it's sized at 43 MB!
Using Quicktime Player's "Export" option I did manage to cut down the resolution to 480p which made the file 6 MB, but is it acceptable to post that big attachements here?

 

[Mr.Blacky]

OK. I did manage to make a screen-video of this, transferred it to my Mac only to realize it's sized at 43 MB!
Using Quicktime Player's "Export" option I did manage to cut down the resolution to 480p which made the file 6 MB, but is it acceptable to post that big attachements here?

Just post the video.

 

[macstatic]

OK, I gave it a go and it seems to work (I couldn't find anything about disallowing relevant videos from being posted in the forum rules either).

So here's a video clip I made showing the enlarged status-bar icons/text when you point to one of them with your finger. Very handy if you find them too small to properly see.
Then I show how to enable/disable this feature. Note: each time after adjusting the text size option I try it out by pressing the status-bar icons. Obviously you won't see anything when it won't work. It starts working after adjusting the text size beyond a certain size (close to 3/4 text size and beyond to the maximum size).
This is on an iPad Mini (5th generation) with IOS 14.8.

 

[Mr.Blacky]

OK, I gave it a go and it seems to work (I couldn't find anything about disallowing relevant videos from being posted in the forum rules either).

So here's a video clip I made showing the enlarged status-bar icons/text when you point to one of them with your finger. Very handy if you find them too small to properly see.
Then I show how to enable/disable this feature. Note: each time after adjusting the text size option I try it out by pressing the status-bar icons. Obviously you won't see anything when it won't work. It starts working after adjusting the text size beyond a certain size (close to 3/4 text size and beyond to the maximum size).
This is on an iPad Mini (5th generation) with IOS 14.8.

View attachment 1954717

I just can't get this to work. So either there is more to this than just increasing the text size or it really doesn't work anymore in iOS/iPadOS 15.

 

[macstatic]

You may be right about IOS 15 -I just tried it on an iPhone 11 with IOS 15 but couldn't get it to work there.
It would be interesting to hear from someone else using IOS 14.x like me (I'm on 14.8) to hear if they could replicate this feature as well.
I suspected "Accessibility" to have something to do with this but I've tried everything and it appears not to affect this (obviously hidden/undocumented) feature. I was hoping to be able to reset the accessibility settings I've done back to the factory defaults just to be sure, but I can't see any way to do this.

 

[martin2345uk]

I can get this feature to work in my old iPhone 5S! Had no idea it even existed before...

EDIT: turns out it also works on my XR...!

FINAL EDIT: And my iPad!

 

[macstatic]

I can get this feature to work in my old iPhone 5S! Had no idea it even existed before...

EDIT: turns out it also works on my XR...!

FINAL EDIT: And my iPad!

Which IOS versions are on those?
Did you follow my instructions (in post #6) to get it to work, or did you enable it in another way, perhaps along with some other setting?
This feature is a mystery, and I can't find it documented or mentioned anywhere (I've done a fair bit of web-searching).

 

[martin2345uk]

Which IOS versions are on those?
Did you follow my instructions (in post #6) to get it to work, or did you enable it in another way, perhaps along with some other setting?
This feature is a mystery, and I can't find it documented or mentioned anywhere (I've done a fair bit of web-searching).

The 5S is only on iOS12 but the XR and iPad are both on the latest, 15.something

It only works if the text is made larger, as you say

 

[macstatic]

Thanks for reporting back
Wow! It's strange that you have it working in IOS 15 while others can't access this feature. Maybe it only works in combination with something else enabled or disabled. Any ideas?

 

[EedyBeedyBeeps]

Ah! I figured it out (and I wasn't imagining it ).

1) open the "Settings" app
2) go to "Display & brightness"
3) Go to "Text size"
4) adjust the text size to a little more than halfway to the right side (i.e. all text becomes a little larger)

Once that's done you can touch ANY of the status bar icons/text and it will display bigger in the middle of the screen.

I'm on iPadOS 15.3 with a 2021 11" iPad Pro. I followed the instructions you listed, then tried tapping the battery percentage, but it didn't work.

But then I went to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Larger Text. Once there, I turned on Larger Accessibility Sizes. I adjusted the text-size slider to the 5th notch from the right/maximum position. That worked, and I can now see the popups of larger text in the middle of the screen after tapping on my Battery Percentage in the status bar.

For me, it seems that the threshold for this feature to work is around the 5th or 6th notch from the right/maximum on the Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Larger Text slider. Not sure if this would be the same threshold notch on either a larger or smaller screen.

 

[bmac89]

I have figured it out. It doesn’t work unless you enable “larger accessibility sizes” first in
Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Larger Text.

Changing the text size alone doesn’t work. It has to be switched on in the accessibility section instead of the normal Settings > Display & brightness > text size.

I’m on iPadOS 13 so someone else will have to confirm whether it works on 15.

P.S. It turns out the person above me already figured it out and it works on iPadOS 15. I need more sleep!!!

 

[macstatic]

I have figured it out. It doesn’t work unless you enable “larger accessibility sizes” first in
Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Larger Text.

Changing the text size alone doesn’t work. It has to be switched on in the accessibility section instead of the normal Settings > Display & brightness > text size.

You're absolutely right!
There appears to be some interaction between the text size within "Accessibility" and "Display & Brightness", but as you say "Larger accessibility sizes" (within "Accessibility") has to be turned on first.

For me, the challenge is to make the text as small as possible (but still readable) because within certain apps (Books for instance) the Collections names just get shortened/truncated with larger text sizes, so I can't see their full names. Very frustrating when there's actually enough room to the right to display more text (even though this is an iPad Mini 5th gen). Maybe a bug or something the programmers haven't noticed (or maybe it's been fixed in IOS 15.x -I'm still on 14.8)

 

[craigman]

You're absolutely right!
There appears to be some interaction between the text size within "Accessibility" and "Display & Brightness", but as you say "Larger accessibility sizes" (within "Accessibility") has to be turned on first.

For me, the challenge is to make the text as small as possible (but still readable) because within certain apps (Books for instance) the Collections names just get shortened/truncated with larger text sizes, so I can't see their full names. Very frustrating when there's actually enough room to the right to display more text (even though this is an iPad Mini 5th gen). Maybe a bug or something the programmers haven't noticed (or maybe it's been fixed in IOS 15.x -I'm still on 14.8)

Thank you for the info- I wanted to make the battery percentage larger. So I tried what you had posted earlier. and also Eedy, bmac and It works when I go to Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Larger Text, then to move the Larger Accessibility Sizes button on the bottom to the right, about 3.5 intervals from the right hand side. Then press the battery percentage to see the larger battery percentage view in the middle of the screen.
I have an iPhone SE, iOS 16.6.