Do you enjoy streaming videos and listening to podcasts on your iPhone? If so, have you ever struggled sliding your iPhone’s scrubber to rewind or fast-forward it precisely to a specific point on the timeline?
Don’t fret. Your iPhone has a simple hack that allows you to control your iPhone’s timeline scrubber better as you scrub through various media on your iPhone.
What Is Scrubbing?
Most built-in apps have 15- or 30-second rewind and fast-forward buttons to make it easy to navigate through the progress bar of whatever content were watching or listening to.
However, many of us seldom use these. Instead, we scrub. That is, we move the small dot—aka the scrubber—on the timeline. This is a fast and more accurate way to rewind or fast-forward to a specific point on the media that you’re playing on your iPhone.
How to Scrub at Different Speeds
Although scrubbing is easy to do, it can often be imprecise—especially if you have a big finger. High-speed scrubbing, or the default scrubbing speed, can be so fast that it is hard to land at the exact spot that you want to play from.
To fine tune the scrubbing rate, simply tap and hold the scrubber. When you do this, the label Hi-Speed Scrubbing will appear. Drag it up or down a little to adjust the speed to Half-Speed Scrubbing, Quarter-Speed Scrubbing, and then Fine Scrubbing. There’s also haptic feedback to indicate your transition to a different scrubbing rate.
Now you can drag your finger left or right along the timeline to scrub through the content at that speed.
Apps Where You Can Apply Scrubbing
This feature works for built-in apps like Apple Music, Podcasts, Voice Memos, and the Apple TV app. However, in the Apple TV app, you won’t find indicators that tell you which scrubbing rate you’re using; you’ll need to depend on the haptic feedback instead.
You can also use this in third-party apps with scrubbing features, like Spotify. However, you will not have indicators like haptic feedback or labels to tell you your scrubbing rate.
Fine Tune Your Scrubbing
You don’t always need precise scrubbing, but using this hack can be extremely useful when you’re listening to or watching particularly long content. In such instances, accurate control not only eases frustration but also saves you a lot of time.