Using Back Tap on iPhone

I had the pleasure of participating in the GoWP Niche Agency Owners Happiness Hour recently and we talked all about tools (I didn’t know that going in, but as you can imagine I was pleased). Something I got to demo was how to turn on iPhone Back Tap (a feature in iOS 14 and up). Since many didn’t know about it, I thought it would be a good thing to demo here.

What is Back Tap?

Back Tap is an accessibility feature that allows you to set up actions when you double- or triple-tap the back of your iPhone. And while the preset actions are mostly accessibility related, you can also assign a shortcut.

How I’m Using Back Tap

The shortcuts can do just about anything, including open apps. So my back taps are:

• Open Camera for Double Tap
• Open Craft for Triple Tap

I thought a lot about what actions I wish I had quick access to when I have my phone in hand. Since I have small kids, the Camera is definitely a much. And since I always want to capture ideas quickly, a fast way to open my main ideas app, Craft, would be hugely helpful.

Since you can explicitly open apps with Back Tap (yet), I’d need to rely on those shortcuts. You can get the camera shortcut here.

How You Can Enable Back Tap

I put together a quick (less than 1 minute) video tutorial on how you can enable back tap. If you prefer to read it, 9to5Mac has a good write up.

Back Tap on iPhone is a HUGE time saver! How will you use it? Let me know in the comments!