My iPhone’s flashlight isn’t just a tool I casually fire up if something accidentally rolls under the couch, it’s a feature I use daily to light up the way to the bathroom in the middle of the night, scan my backyard when animals make weird sounds and… OK, yeah, find something I’ve lost under my couch. Because I use my iPhone flashlight so much, I have a tool deep within the iOS settings menu that makes it easier to light the torch. No more fiddling with the lock screen to find the flashlight icon or unlocking my phone first.
This hidden iPhone feature has made my flashlight more useful.
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Apple introduced Back Tap for iPhone with iOS 14. You can quickly take a screenshot or launch your camera by tapping the backside of your phone. It turns your entire iPhone’s back into an icon.
This is a great benefit for everyone. For me, enabling Back Tap has allowed me to turn it into a customizable button that quickly triggers the iPhone flashlight. I’ll show you how to set it all up, and you can also customize Back Tap to trigger additional actions.
Also, if you want to learn more about other iPhone and iOS features, check out these 10 next-level iOS 16 features and how to find the “secret” iPhone trackpad.
How to set up Back Tap for iPhone
The same path will take you through your iPhone settings, whether you want to link Back Tap to your flashlight, camera, or launch a new iPhone app.
Launch the Settings app on your compatible iPhone (iPhone 8 and later) and go to Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. Now you can choose to launch your action (in our case, your flashlight). Two Or Three taps. While two taps are faster, I recommend three taps. If you fidget with the phone, it’s easy for accessibility to be accidentally triggered.
After you have selected a tap option, click the Flashlight You can choose to use the same action or another option. You’ll see over 30 options to choose from, including system options like Siri or taking a screenshot, to accessibility-specific functions like opening a magnifier or turning on real-time live captions. You can also set Up Back Tap to open Control Center, go home, mut your audio, adjust the volume, and run any shortcuts that you’ve created or downloaded.
You have the option of choosing between Double Tap or Triple Tap.
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When a blue checkmark appears right above the action, you will know that you have successfully selected your choice. This way, you could create two shortcuts — one that is triggered by two taps and another that is triggered when you tap the back cover of your iPhone.
After exiting the Settings app, you can use the newly enabled Back Tap feature to tap the back of your iPhone. In my case, this will turn on the flashlight. You can also tap the back of your iPhone to turn off the flashlight. However, you can also turn it off from the lock screen if you prefer.
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