You Can Open Any App By Tapping the Back of Your iPhone: Here’s How

New iPhones have made the headlines for the addition of the camera control button. But there is already a way to open the camera application without unlocking your device or touching the screen – and it works even if you use an iPhone that has been several years.

In fact, if you have a shortcut for this, you can open any application simply by pressing your iPhone back. All you have to do is configure the secret “button”.

You can use this feature not only to launch applications, but also activate your flashlight or activate Shazam to identify a song before the end. You can summon the control center of your iPhone or the notification center without having to slip at the top of your screen. With a little imagination, you can use this feature to perform almost all the functions of your phone.

The functionality is called back tap, and as the action button on new iPhones, it gives you another way to interact with your device without touching the screen. You can activate it by typing anywhere at the back of your phone, including on the camera module. The best part is that it works even if you have a fairly thick case on your iPhone.

Back Tap is available on iPhones as old as the iPhone 8, as long as they run iOS 14 or later. We will show you how to activate it and how to use it with your shortcut application for almost endless possibilities.

Find out more: All ways in which the iPhone 16 camera control button will change your iPhone photography

What is the function of iPhone Back Tap?

Back TAP is an iPhone feature introduced in iOS 14. It allows you to make shortcuts on your iPhone by double or triple tapping on the back of the device.

You can customize back on your iPhone to easily perform joint actions, such as drawing the control center or the notification center, particularly useful if you have a larger phone and you cannot slide down the screen without complex finger gymnastics. You can even have two distinct functions activated at the same time: the rear tap can distinguish between a double tap and a triple tap.

Depending on the number of times you touch the back of your iPhone, you can define the double tap to open your notification center and your triple tap to take a screenshot. Or, you can make sure that the control center and the triple Tap launch the magnifying application. Experience with Back Tap to find the right combinations of taps and functions that best suit your needs.

And you are not limited to the rear tap options available by default. Thanks to the shortcut application, you can configure TAP back to perform specific functions or launch any application. For example, you can create a simple shortcut that opens Shazam or starts a voice recording, then activate it with a quick double tap or a triple tap. You can also use Back Tap to trigger a more elaborate shortcut, such as automatic sending photos and videos to specific photo albums.

How to configure Press my iPhone?

To activate the tap, go to your Parameters App. Then to Accessibility → Touch → Press. There, you will find a list of options to configure the double tap and the triple TAP.

Here is the complete list of functions you can map at a double tap or triple:

• None

• Accessibility shortcut

System

• Application switch

• Camera

• Control center

• Flashlight

• Home

• Locking

• Locking screen

• Mute

• Notification center

• Attachment

• Screenshot

• Shake

• Highlight

• Volume

• Volume

Accessibility

• Assty

• Substantive sounds

• Classic invert

• Color filters

• Check the nearby devices

• Dark flashing lights

• Live legends

• Live speech

• News

• Intelligent inverted

• Speech screen

• Off voice

• Zoom

• Zoom controller

Scrolling gestures

At the bottom of the menu, you will also see a list of Shortcut. These options will vary depending on what is available in your shortcut application.

The only potential drawback to press the tap is that you do not get any touch comments when you use it, so you can accidentally trigger it at the wrong time and do it until later. For example, you can double without sense and trigger your pocket lamp by accident. In this case, you may want to remedy your double tap towards a less visible function. Or, you can leave the double tap and use only triple tap, which you probably do not trigger so often.

How to use Back Tap to take a quick photo?

A way to configure the tap back is to map the double tap towards the Camera and triple tap for Volume Or Volume. Because you can press one or the other of the volume buttons to instantly take a photo, you can get the same effect if your volume buttons are mapped to press back. With this combination, you can capture a photo with five quick taps at the back of your iPhone (although you should stop briefly between performing the double tap and triple tap, so that your phone can distinguish between the two actions).

This rear tap combination works even if your phone is locked. Again, spend a little time trying different combinations of taps and features to find the most useful you.