The HomePod mini is easy to explain-it’s just a smaller, cheaper HomePod. Just as Apple did in its event, let’s get the HomePod mini out of the way first. In its “Hi, Speed” event, the company unveiled a new lineup of four iPhone 12 models along with the new HomePod mini. Learn more at:įor the second time in less than a month, Apple has made a splashy announcement. Social Media: One of the most useful features of iOS 14 is Back Tap, which lets you invoke custom actions with a double or triple tap on the back of your iPhone. (Featured image by Ekaterina Bolovtsova from Pexels) Give it a try! Back Tap might turn out to be the iOS 14 feature you use more frequently than any other. If you want to learn more about Shortcuts right away, check out Take Control of Shortcuts, a 122-page ebook by Rosemary Orchard. Then you can assign a double tap in Back Tap to invoke Take a Break, which sets an alarm for a specified number of minutes and turns on Do Not Disturb until the alarm goes off. For instance, if you tap the Gallery button in Shortcuts ➊, tap Starter Shortcuts ➋, tap Take a Break ➌, and tap Add Shortcut ➍, you’ll copy the Take a Break shortcut to My Shortcuts.
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Other systems call similar collections of commands macros or automations or workflows.Įxplaining how to build your own shortcuts is a topic for another day, but you can also download sample shortcuts from Apple’s gallery, both to see how it’s done and to use them. With it, you can chain together multiple actions derived from iOS capabilities or provided by your apps to create custom shortcuts. Wait, what’s Shortcuts? It’s an automation app that Apple includes with every iPhone. Anything Shortcuts can do, you can invoke with a double or triple tap. Shortcuts: Here’s where Back Tap becomes ultimately useful, at least if you can find or build the necessary shortcuts.Sadly, they don’t work for horizontally driven page flipping in book reading apps like Libby. Scroll Gestures: These options scroll a vertically oriented page or screen.(Voice Control provides much more capable dictation than Siri.) The most compelling actions for the general public are Magnifier, Speak Screen, and Voice Control. Accessibility: For those who need these Accessibility options, having them easily accessible via Back Tap will be welcome.Most interesting are Mute, which toggles the ringer volume without forcing you to press the Volume Down button repeatedly, and Screenshot, which takes a picture of your screen without making you press two buttons at once. System: Most of the System choices mimic easy Home screen gestures or button presses.So yes, you could make a double tap open Spotlight for searching, but unless that’s somehow a lot easier than swiping down on the Home screen, it’s not worth one of your two triggers. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap (it’s way down at the bottom), where you can attach actions to both double tap and a triple tap.Īpple provides a broad set of actions, but most of them are focused on helping people who can’t use other iPhone gestures. But just as curb cuts help both those in wheelchairs and stroller-pushing parents, the Back Tap feature is a boon for everyone.
That’s because it’s technically an accessibility feature for those who have trouble interacting with the iPhone physically. Sorry, Back Tap isn’t available in iPadOS 14.Įnabling Back Tap is easy, although you might not stumble upon it on your own. With a double or triple tap on the back of any iPhone 8 or newer running iOS 14, you can invoke any one of a variety of actions, including custom Shortcuts. With iOS 14, Apple has opened up a new and customizable way of triggering actions: Back Tap. You might put an app on your Dock, open Control Center, or take advantage of the triple-press Accessibility shortcut.
Apple has long provided ways of making your most common actions easier to access. We all have things we do regularly on our iPhones, whether it’s checking the weather, searching Google, or invoking the magnifier.
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