What is a sheet grabber?

Every now and then if you use VoiceOver on your iPhone or iPad you'll do something which causes VoiceOver to speak "sheet grabber". It's not immediately obvious what this is but it's really very simple. You've taken an action which has brought up a so-called sheet of additional information to appear overlaid on the screen you were working on. The sheet normally occupies the lower part of the screen. The sheet grabber is a long thin shape that appears at the top centre of the sheet. If VoiceOver isn't being used the size of the sheet overlay can be adjusted by dragging the sheet grabber up or down. For a VoiceOver user, when sheets appear, VoiceOver's focus normally jumps to the sheet grabber and "sheet grabber" is spoken . In many situations the sheet grabber can be ignored by VoiceOver users since for sheets displaying text VoiceOver will continue speaking the sheet below the section that is initially displayed without you needing to interact with the sheet grabber. So, in many situations, if you aren't using your vision in conjunction with VoiceOver, just ignore the sheet grabber and swipe right to hear the main content of the sheet, which will include a close button to dismiss the sheet. If the sheet grabber is double tapped by a VoiceOver user it usually toggles the sheet height between preset values. This may be of use to someone using VoiceOver in conjunction with their vision, allowing them to optimise the visual screen layout. In some apps, such as Voice Memos, the sheet grabber has an important role and can be used to increase the sheet size and reveal otherwise hidden controls and in Voice Memos on an iPhone the sheet grabber is the only way to reveal the controls which allow pause and resume while recording. If you come across a sheet grabber in an unfamiliar location it can do no harm to experiment by double tapping the grabber.  - just in case it does something useful.

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