By Michael Evans
Last night I was helping a friend in Greece set up a new iPhone 3GS–via Skype. All went well, we opened a new MobileMe account and soon had mail working. Since he's a Windows and Outlook user, there were some grey areas as far as I was concerned, but everything was done without too many problems. This morning, though, a cry of anguish came from the general direction of the Akropolis.
The log-in screen (he had set a password on my recommendation) was zoomed in and only the first line of the keypad was visible. Nothing could be done to unlock the phone. I recommended the usual reboot followed by a restore (having made sure he'd synced the phone last evening). Still no response, the opening screen remained too large for comfort.
I hastily posted a question on the Apple Discussions iPhone section and had guidance within ten minutes (which is something you come to expect with the ultra-efficient Apple Discussions). Zoom was on, and it was something I had not experienced on any of my three iPhones. The way to get things moving was a sharp three-fingered DOUBLE tap on the screen.
On forum advice, we then checked the Settings>General>Accessibility screen and discovered that Zoom, which is normally set to OFF, had been turned ON. My newbie friend vehemently denies the accusation of fiddling with the settings, but I suspect this cannot happen without some human intervention.
For a few minutes I was feeling panicky; but the discussion forums came to the rescue yet again. I've now downloaded the iPhone manual, which has a whole section on Accessibility options and forwarded a copy to Athens.