The feature I’m looking forward to the most in iOS 14 wasn’t
even mentioned in the Mel bs tits this year. It’s called
Back Tap.
Tina desai hot that Back Tap:
didn’t make a big splash in the WWDC keynote but will be super
useful for all users
I couldn’t agree more.
Back Tap is just what it sounds: tap the back of your phone
either twice or three times to activate a pre-configured action.
You can switch it on by heading to:
Settings → Accessibility → Touch → Back Tap
You can then choose Double Tap or Triple Tap, and assign one of
the following actions:
- Accessibility Shortcut
- App Switcher
- Control Centre
- Home
- Lock Screen
- Mute
- Notification Centre
- Reachability
- Screenshot
- Shake
- Siri
- Spotlight
- Volume Up
- Volume Down
And if you want to bypass Accessibility Shortcut and activate an
accessibility feature directly, you can also assign:
- AssistiveTouch
- Classic Invert
- Magnifier
- Smart Invert
- Speak Screen
- VoiceOver
- Zoom
Then there are a couple of scroll gestures:
Finally, you can access your Shortcuts: any Shortcut you’ve
configured can be assigned to a Back Tap!
I’ve loved Control Centre since it was introduced back in 2013
with iOS 7. A quick way to access utilities like WiFi, screen
brightness, the torch, etc. was one of the big things iOS was
missing.
Control Centre was accessed by an upwards swipe from the bottom
of the screen, which made sense and was easy to do with one hand.
But when Apple released the iPhone X in 2017, that swipe-up gesture
now became the central way to close an app and go back to the home
screen, or enter the app switcher; basically a replacement home
button. Control Centre was relegated to a swipe-down from the
top-right corner gesture.
I understand the theory: the battery and WiFi icons are in that
corner, so it makes sense that pulling down from that same corner
gives access those (and more) utilities. But I’ve never found it
intuitive, in fact it was a while before the penny dropped
and I figured out their rationale.
Couple that unintuitiveness with the fact that a swipe-down from
anywhere else at top of the screen gives you Notification
Centre and you’ve got a user experience issue.
More than the theory and the
two-features-being-accessed-in-almost-exactly-the-same-way thing,
though, it’s a pain to get to that top corner. Getting to that
corner with your right hand means adjusting your grip of the phone
considerably (more-so with the larger Max form factor), or using
your free hand to swipe down.
I’m right-handed but use my phone predominantly left-handed,
which makes it impossible to reach that opposite corner without
using my right hand. There are a lot of left-handed folk out there
who must have the same problem!
So the first thing I’ll be assigning to Back Tap will be Control
Centre. My choice for the second Back Tap action is a little less
cut and dried, but my gut tells my I’ll make Reachability my choice
for that second, triple Back Tap slot.
Reachability is useful, again, so that I can touch bits of the
interface that are otherwise out of easy thumb-reach. It’s not too
hard to get to on my iPhone XR and it makes sense: swipe down on
the bottom edge of the screen. The problem is, it means:
- adjusting my grip
- my thumb is taken away from the front of the screen
Without my thumb hovering above the screen, there’s a higher
than normal chance that I fumble and drop £1000 of hardware.
Doesn’t make me feel particularly comfortable.
Activating Reachability with a Back Tap makes practical sense
and also ties with the theme of tapping the back of my phone to
bring things downwards:
- Control Centre slides down over the top of the interface
- Reachability moves the whole interface down
By that same logic, I had considered Notification Centre for the
triple Back Tap slot, but I almost always get to it from the lock
screen; never by swiping down from the top of my phone.
Circling back to that 9To5Mac quote, that Back Tap is going to
be useful for all users is exactly right – it’ll
be very handy for most users, but likely much more so for those
with certain access needs; for example:
- Magnifier and Zoom will prove very handy for the likes of my 70
year old parents
- Scroll Up and Scroll Down will be very useful for users with
impaired motor function
- VoiceOver and Speak Screen will help users with Dyslexia read
certain page content
First and foremost, Back Tap is an accessibility feature—it’s in
the Accessibility section of Settings, after all—but it’s one of
those great features that was designed and built for users with
access needs, but winds up providing a better experience for
everyone. I can’t wait!
