iOS 14’s most notable feature is without a doubt widgets on the home screen. They really do change your home screen for the better. But after spending some time poking around the developer beta last night, Input‘s Raymond Wong discovered a hidden feature – called “Back Tap” – that just might change how you use your iPhone.
The iOS 14 feature we’re talking about is a setting buried within Accessibility. Under the Touch setting, there’s a way to set a “Back Tap” to perform an action. Essentially, Apple is turning the back of your iPhone into a button. There are two programmable taps — double- and triple-tap — and within minutes both have already changed the way I use my iPhone.
You can map either taps to activate a number of select settings, accessibility features, scroll gestures, or Siri Shortcuts. Personally, I set a double-tap to scroll up in an app or web page and a triple-tap to take a screenshot. The latter is especially killer because even though I’ve owned an iPhone for 10 years, I still fumble with pressing the power button + volume up to take a screenshot on my iPhone 11 Pro. Literally, taking screenshots only requires one finger now.
MacDailyNews Take: Very useful! Check out the video examples in the full article.
Maybe in the spirit of diversity Apple should rename it “Tap dat back”….
Really? Seriously? Your spirit is not one of diversity, TT.
I hear you can even trigger a Siri Shortcut with it.
Back Tap imo is by far the most interesting and useful new feature in iOS14.
WTF is the point of creating a feature only to hide it???
Mac OS and iOS have always achieved elegance and minimalism by hiding features – in the interface at least. Granted, this is a biggie.
This could also be a way to drive eyeballs and awareness of “normal” people to accessibility features in general. iOS accessibility apparently remains way ahead of what Android offers, so among people who need accessibility features there are 3 times as many iOS users than Android, a complete flip from “normal” people usage.
Does it work when the phone is in a case?
Yes