Apple officially released iOS 14 to the public today. Today’s update includes a variety of new features, including widgets on the Home screen, an all-new App Library, and much more.
Apple brings tons of new accessibility features to its iOS devices, including some that people without disabilities could also find helpful.
This new feature, called Back Tap within Settings, can be used to do things like access Control Center, Notification Center, the Lock screen, the Home screen, or the App Switcher, or it can change the volume, mute the iPhone, take a screenshot, or access a Shortcut.
It can also set up to work with several Accessibility features like enabling the magnifier or VoiceOver, performing gestures, and even launching Shortcuts.
If you get creative, there is a lot that Back Tap can do. A double-tap can start a playlist on your HomePod, for example, or a triple-tap can launch the Camera app.
To enable this feature on supported iOS 14 devices:
- Open Settings
- Venture to Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap
- Choose an action for the double-tap as well as the triple tap, if you so choose
VoiceOver has also received significant improvements with support for image descriptions, text recognition, and screen recognition, as well as Headphone Accommodations that can amplify soft sounds and adjust specific frequencies for music, movies, phone calls, podcasts, and more.
“Together with iPhone, iOS is central to how we navigate our lives and stay connected, and we are making it even more powerful and easier to use in iOS 14, with the biggest update ever to the Home Screen,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering.
iOS 14 is available as a free software update starting today for iPhone 6s and later. For more information, visit apple.com/ios/ios-14.
