One of my favorite new features in iOS 14 is an accessibility setting that allows a double tap or triple tap on the back of the phone to trigger an action. You can set this up in Settings->Accessibility->Touch->Back Tap .
In general, I love how accessibility features on iOS are so useful even for the average person who wouldn’t be considered or classified as disabled.
> In general, I love how accessibility features on iOS are so useful even for the average person who wouldn’t be considered or classified as disabled.
This is super important. People who don't need accomodation sometimes complain about the ADA rules for buildings but at some point everybody takes advantage of things like crash bars to open a door (when your hands are full, or are just on the phone), ramps (perhaps you're pulling something, have a kid, or are on crutches for a few days), handrails (momentary distraction) etc.
And ditto for the phone. I consider the label on the "accessibility" settings just there to make them easy to find; they aren't there for a small number of people (even if most people change at most one default setting).
My wife has no disabilities (and is a very light/casual tech user) but uses heaps of the iOS accessibility features. I personally had never really looked at them until she started showing me how handy so many of them are day to day.
Things like:
The triple-tap-to-zoom feature has a “low light” filter that works on top of your brightness setting so you can use it to get a lower-than-lowest-brightness for reading in bed at night (even the lowest brightness isn’t low enough sometimes).
Reachability setting if you have a big phone and small hands let’s you drag the entire interface down with 1 finger and reach buttons at the top of the UI.
LED Flash for Alerts gives you a visual notification if you work somewhere where you need your phone on silent but also can’t use vibration alerts (she works in a medical field and her phone sits across the room on a table).
Lots of interesting ideas in an area of Settings 99% of people never touch.
I make use of big text mode on my linux laptop because 1080p on a 13" laptop makes everything tiny and fractional scailing is still a beta thing right now.
I've long used the Mac's ctrl-scroll shortcut for zooming in on the display. Ages ago, when I was working in the same room as the design staff for a company I worked at, they saw me do that and were quick to activate it on their iMacs as it's really handy for checking pixel-level rendering on web interfaces.
Seriously! It's really frustrating that people tend to think accessibility features are just for people experiencing disability. The web, applications, and the whole world at large is made better for _all_ people when we build with a mind toward accessibility.
iOS lets you turn on a red filter that disables the green and blue channels. you can set it to turn on by triple tapping the home button (or I'm guessing the back for new phones). This is the one thing I really miss after switching to Android. The red screen is fantastic for reading at night, really easy on the eyes.
Cf.lumen has this feature (yes, true red colouring, not just a yellow tinge like night shift), but it requires root and it's not updated anymore. (you need to find the 3.72 beta version online for it to work on Android Q)
Yeah Android has some features and apps in this space. This iOS mode is an accessibility feature. I guess for some people a pure red screen helps them see it better?
This feature is not intended as a "night mode", it's very extreme. It also makes anything that has no red channel in its color disappear (although this is rare). I found it's a better night mode than actual night modes. But it's best if you're just reading text, for video or games it's probably too extreme.
This does not appear to be available on the iPhone SE (2016). Interestingly, searching for "Back Tap" does show a singel result for Accessibility -> Touch, but once you're there the option is hidden.
I guess a vibrating unit is an electric motor fundamentally. And an electric motor is also a generator when run in reverse. Maybe the Taptic Engine can also sense vibrations too.
I take screenshots often as reminders, to annotate, etc. I setup a double-tap as an action to take a screenshot. So much faster then the older methods. You get some false positives, but really handy productivity hack.
That's awesome. The ergonomics seem to require a 2 handed phone hold. With 1 hand, holding the phone and trying to tap on the back in quick succession is too difficult for me.
In general, I love how accessibility features on iOS are so useful even for the average person who wouldn’t be considered or classified as disabled.