iPhone hidden feature takes screenshots and controls home with simple gesture
While there's a plethora of tricks you can perform with your iPhone, many might not know that a simple gesture could unlock a host of additional features.
A hidden gesture on your iPhone could enable you to take a screenshot or even control parts of your home with barely a flick of a finger. To access this feature, iPhone users need the Shortcuts app.
This app typically comes pre-installed on your iPhone and doesn't require downloading from the App Store. The tool lets users create custom shortcuts on their phone, enabling them to streamline a multitude of tasks by linking them all to one action, such as a gesture or button press.
One specific gesture that can utilise Shortcuts is the 'Back Tap' feature. This allows users to trigger a Shortcut when they double or triple-tap the back of their phone with their finger.
How to activate back tapping on your iPhone
Official guidance from Apple states that a double or triple tack on the back of an iPhone can be activated with the following steps:
Press Settings
Press Accessibility
Press Touch
Press Back Tap
Select Double Tap or Triple Tap
Choose what action you want to link it to (e.g. take a screenshot)
What can be controlled with back tap
Apple's guidance highlights that a double or triple tap can perform minor actions such as taking a screenshot. However, to fully exploit the feature, you might want to link it to run a personalised Shortcut.
The Shortcut app boasts a plethora of actions that can be executed with just a tap on your smartphone. DiscoPumpe, a Reddit user, shared their use of the shortcuts app to switch off all lights at home.
In a discussion about the various uses for shortcuts, they explained: "I use it a lot. You can even make different shortcuts depending on the focus mode that is activated. So while a triple tap shuts all light and music off while my home focus is activated, it activated my budget tracking shortcut while I'm out."
Meanwhile, Larten_Crepsley90 said: "I have a shortcut that takes a screenshot and copies all of the text, it then saves it into a note and opens the note. Handy when I want to copy something that is not selectable."
Not_TheMenInBlack added: "Double tap opens a prompt to switch between mono and stereo. It gets a lot more use than you'd think. Triple tap turns on my color filters, night shift, etc. to redwash my screen before bed. I typically have this all automated with my sleep focus, but occasionally it helps to minimize eye strain when I have headaches."
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The hippocampus which controls memory shrinks and atrophies in patients with Alzheimer's, he explains. But reading maps increases brain volume. When scientists examined the brains of London black cab drivers, they had more grey matter in their posterior hippocampi. 'Their hippocampus grew as they learnt 'The Knowledge' (how to navigate between thousands of places in the city), and that was shown to be protective against dementia in long-term studies.' In contrast, every time I access GPS on my phone, my grid cells (found in the medial entorhinal cortex), and place cells (located in the hippocampus), crucial for spatial navigation and memory, are bypassed. We don't notice our surroundings. 'The problem is, we're not using the circuitry,' says Prof Sadlier. 'And if you use Google Maps to go somewhere, your brain thinks: 'I don't need to learn this'.' For the first time ever, UK IQ levels are decreasing. 'We saw that in the PISA scores (Programme for International Student Assessment). Mathematical and literacy scores are starting to come down.' The brain is lazy, so it seeks the lowest energy way to perform tasks, leading to a reliance on devices. He compares it to when people stop walking because we can now drive to the shops. 'If you keep using the device, your native brain will become weak and stop working, just as your legs and heart weaken if you don't exercise.' It's been a genuine shock to realise that by relying on our screens we are losing our competitive advantage as humans (ie communication by words and gestures). Never mind our capacity for empathy and connection. But the good news is every time I go analogue, use a map, hand-write a list, I am firing up my indigenous memory, increasing brain volume and protecting against dementia. A week without a phone was tough. It was also genuinely life-changing. Seven tips for a healthy brain Let your mind wander When our executive network, used for performing high-level cognitive tasks, quietens down, our brain activates a network vital for mental and physical health (the default mode network). It also helps us process memories. 'It's your brain's filing cabinet,' says Prof Sadlier. 'You're enhancing intelligence and creativity but also reducing your chances of developing depression and dementia.' Hand-write a list Taking notes the traditional way – with pen and paper or even stylus and tablet – is still the best way to learn. Engaging the fine motor system to produce letters by hand has positive effects on learning and memory, says Prof Kieran Clarke, 72, emeritus professor of physiological biochemistry at the University of Oxford, whose research interests include cognitive function. Reduce social media 'There's a healthy, sensible way to use the internet,' says Prof Sadlier. 'And the first lesson is social media is not the internet. I would say to people, put self-contained apps like the BBC or Telegraph app on your phone and set the notifications to the type of news stories you want, because you will be as notified as everybody else if war breaks out! But when you read that story, you're not sucked into an algorithm.' Read a book 'Book reading forces your executive attention to work,' says Dr Dedyukhina. 'Executive attention is the ability to stay focused on something and ignore everything else. And it's super-difficult these days, because when we read online, we learn a different pattern. We learn the so-called 'Z pattern', because we scan through the words, and the scanning pattern resembles the letter Z or F. I advise my students to read one page per day without distractions. If they can do one, then next time two, and so forth.' Connect Far better, Dr Sehmer explains, is to have an active conversation with someone about their holiday, rather than just scrolling past their photos on Instagram. 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If you notice these patterns, when your cognition goes up and down, you start working as a human, not a machine.'
