Your iPhone, a device designed to keep you connected, offers a range of alert methods for new messages, phone calls, and notifications. Among these, the vibration function stands out. When activated, your phone will discreetly notify you by vibrating upon receiving an alert, a feature that can be particularly useful in certain situations.
The vibration feature on your iPhone, called “haptics,” serves a variety of practical purposes. For instance, it can receive notifications discreetly when noise is inappropriate, like during meetings. Moreover, it’s a valuable tool for accessibility, aiding individuals with hearing impairments in staying connected. Additionally, it’s a handy feature when your iPhone is in Silent Mode, ensuring you don’t miss important calls or texts without needing a ringtone.
Here’s more information about the iPhone vibration feature, including how to activate it, whether you can adjust its strength, and more. These steps work on any iPhone, including the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro.
Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends
How to turn vibrations on and off on your iPhone
You can activate the vibrations feature through the Settings app. And once you’re there, adjusting the vibration feature is pretty straightforward.
Step 1: Open the Settings app on your device.
Step 2: Next, choose Sounds & Haptics.
Step 3: Select Haptics.
Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends
Step 4: Choose the type of haptics you want during ringtones and alerts. Choices are Always Play, Play in Silent Mode, Don’t Play in Silent Mode, and Never Play.
Step 5: Tap the back button to go back to the Sounds & Haptics page and further customize the vibrations via haptics.
Step 6: Tap Ringtone or Text Tone.
Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends
Step 7: Under Ringtone, tap Haptics and make your selection. As you make a choice, you’ll feel the selected vibration.
Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends
Step 8: Under Text Tone, tap Haptics and make your selection. As you make a choice, you’ll feel the selected vibration.
Bryan M. Wolfe / Digital Trends
Can you change the vibration strength on your iPhone?
You might be wondering whether you can change the vibration strength on your iPhone. Unfortunately, you cannot.
Apple has never offered the ability to change vibration strength on the iPhone — not even in the most recent iOS 18 update. This could change in the future, but right now, the option does not exist.
What to do if your iPhone vibrates randomly
Though it’s unlikely, you may experience what seems like random vibrations. There are a few troubleshooting steps you can take to resolve this.
Step 1: Before doing anything else, reboot your iPhone and see if random vibrations no longer happen.
Step 2: Second, ensure that the vibrations are actually random. Go back to the haptics settings on your iPhone and ensure that everything is set up as you want. At the very least, turn off haptics to see if this solves the problem. You can do so by going into the Settings app and choosing Sounds & Haptics, then selecting Haptics. Select Never Play. If that resolves the issue, it’s possible you had simply had incorrect haptics settings. If you want to continue using haptics, go back into the Setting app and reset them according to the steps above.
Step 3: Random vibrations could also be caused by an iOS bug. To resolve this issue, you’ll need to check if there’s an iOS software update that needs to be installed. If there is an update available, install it and then check if the latest version of iOS resolves the problem.
Step 4: Though even less likely, random vibrations could be caused by a hardware issue. In this case, you’d need to contact Apple Support to resolve the issue.
