How to turn vibrate on and off on your iPhone

One of the areas where Apple iPhones stand out against their Android counterparts is haptics. While Apple lets you customise your iPhone’s alert method for calls, new messages, and notifications, iPhone users often appreciate the dedicated mute switch to put the phone on silent. However, you might want to customise the vibrate function on your iPhone. And to do just that, we’ve put together this little guide for you. Read on.

iPhone vibrate mode: How to turn vibrate on and off

On your iPhone, the vibrate feature can be used to discreetly alert you about calls, text messages, and notifications. It also helps individuals with hearing impairments to get alerts on their devices. If you have an iPhone and are wondering how to turn vibrate on and off, here’s a step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Open the Settings app on your iPhone.

Step 2: Scroll down to ‘Sounds & Haptics.’

Step 3: Select ‘Haptics.’

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Step 4: Choose the type of haptics you want for your alerts. Apple offers four options: ‘Always Play,’ ‘Play in Silent Mode,’ ‘Don’t Play in Silent Mode,’ and ‘Never Play.’

Step 5: To further customise the vibrations on your iPhone, go back to the ‘Sounds & Haptics’ page.

Step 6: Click on ‘Ringtone’ or ‘Text Tone.’

Step 7: Under ‘Ringtone,’ tap ‘Haptics’ and choose the type of vibration you want. When you make a choice, you will feel the selected vibration.

Step 8: Now, go to ‘Text Tone,’ tap ‘Haptics’ and make your selection. Again, you will feel the selected vibration as you make a choice.

iPhone vibrate settings: Vibration strength and troubleshooting

One of the common questions related to iPhone’s haptics is whether you can change the vibration strength. Well, the answer is you cannot. Apple has not offered the option to change the vibration strength in the past and even the upcoming iOS 18 update won’t be bringing such an ability to your iPhone in the near future.

However, if you experience random vibrations on your iPhone, here are a few troubleshooting steps to fix the issue.

Step 1: Restart your iPhone to see if these random vibrations stop on your iPhone.

Step 2: If the problem persists, go to your iPhone’s haptics settings and see if each setting is set up the way you want. Turn off haptics and enable it again to see if it resolves the issue. 

Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics and select Haptics. Now, choose the option ‘Never Play’ and follow the above steps to reset haptics as per your choice.

Step 3: The issue could be caused by an iOS bug and to resolve it, go to Settings > General > Software Update and install any pending software update. Once installed, check if the latest version of iOS resolves the random vibration on your iPhone.

Step 4: If none of the above fixes solve the problem then the random vibration on your iPhone could be due to a hardware issue.

With the above settings, you can tune your iPhone’s vibration feature to your liking. If you are in a place where noise is inappropriate, make sure you not only put your iPhone on silent mode but also use vibration to get timely alerts.