How to Use Back Tap on Your iPhone in iOS 14
Apple now features a new iOS 14 accessibility feature by tapping the back of your phone.
Apple’s iOS 14 adds several accessibility features, including VoiceOver AI recognition for photos and apps that don’t include built-in accessibility options, sound recognition for things like fire alarms and doorbells, and sign language recognition in FaceTime, but one new capability in particular has received a lot of attention called Back Tap.
What Is Back Tap?
Back Tap lets you tap the back of your iPhone to perform an action. The intended use case is to turn on another accessibility feature, such as VoiceOver or to perform an action on a hardware Switch Control. But the feature is extremely versatile: it can be set up for accessibility features as well as basic system actions and custom Shortcuts.
Which iPhone models works with Back Tap?
The new accessibility feature works on the following iPhone models: iPhone 8, 8 Plus, iPhone X, iPhone XS, XS Max, iPhone XR, iPhone 11, 11 Pro, 11 Pro Max.
How to Set up Back Tap in iOS 14
Open the main Settings app from your iPhone home screen and select Accessibility. In the Physical and Motor section, select Touch. Scroll all the way to the bottom and select Back Tap.
Choosing action for Back Tap in iOS 14
You have two choices here: Double Tap and Triple Tap. This also means you can choose two different actions for back taps, one for double and one for triple taps.
A long list of options awaits you on the next screen. The first section includes useful system action, including App Switcher, Control Center, Home, Lock Screen, Mute, Notification Center, Screenshot, and Siri. Accessibility options include VoiceOver, Assistive Touch, Classic and Smart Invert (which display inverted colors), and Speak Screen.
You can also use the taps to trigger Shortcuts. Find a whole gallery of these in the Shortcuts app, and even create custom ones—say, for opening an app, sending a message to a particular contact, playing a podcast, creating a tweet, or getting directions home. The options are virtually limitless. Any Shortcut you add will be available for use with Back Tap.
