How to hide the home indicator on iPhone X
Swift version: 5.10
iPhone X did away with the home button for the first time in any iPhone, replacing it with an interactive line that sits at the bottom of the screen called the home indicator.
This indicator always remains visible unless you request others, and generally Apple suggests it’s a good idea to keep it visible. At the same time, there are many times when you want full control of the screen to yourself, for example if the user is watching a video, and in those times you’re going to want to hide the home indicator.
To hide the home indicator on iPhone X all you need to do is return true from the prefersHomeIndicatorAutoHidden property in your view controller. You can add logic if you want, allowing you to hide the home indicator only when certain conditions are reached, or you can just always request it be hidden, like this:
override var prefersHomeIndicatorAutoHidden: Bool {
return true
}That will cause the home indicator to be hidden after a couple of seconds, but it will reappear as soon as the user touches the screen.
SAVE 50% All our books and bundles are half price for Black Friday, so you can take your Swift knowledge further without spending big! Get the Swift Power Pack to build your iOS career faster, get the Swift Platform Pack to builds apps for macOS, watchOS, and beyond, or get the Swift Plus Pack to learn advanced design patterns, testing skills, and more.
Available from iOS 11.0 – see Hacking with Swift tutorial 1
Similar solutions…
- How to hide the home indicator and other system UI
- How to change the scroll indicator inset for a UIScrollView
- How to read the battery level of an iPhone or iPad
- How to check whether an iPhone or iPad is upside down or face up
- How to make an iPhone transmit an iBeacon
About the Swift Knowledge Base
This is part of the Swift Knowledge Base, a free, searchable collection of solutions for common iOS questions.
