YOUR iPhone is packed with clever tricks – including “hidden buttons” lurking on your Home Screen. Even if you’re a long-time iPhone user, you might not be making the best use of your handset. It might surprise you to learn that your Home Screen is littered with hidden buttons. They unlock secret menus for apps, […]
YOUR iPhone is packed with clever tricks – including “hidden buttons” lurking on your Home Screen.
Even if you’re a long-time iPhone user, you might not be making the best use of your handset.
It might surprise you to learn that your Home Screen is littered with hidden buttons.
They unlock secret menus for apps, letting you instantly access some of the best features.
Apple calls the feature Quick Actions, and you may have accidentally found it while moving an app.
It works by long-pressing on an app icon on the iPhone Home Screen to uncover a secret menu.
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There are loads of apps that have a “hidden” button inside the logo.
For instance, do a long press on the Apple Messages app to quickly text your favourite contacts.
Try it on the Settings app and you’ll get a secret menu with shortcuts to Bluetooth, WiFi, Mobile Data and Battery.
Holding down on Photos reveals a Search function used to find images quickly.
You can also instantly navigate to photos from “One Year Ago” using this menu.
And you can quickly jump to your Favourites and Most Recent too.
Long-pressing on Apple Maps lets you quickly search nearby locations.
You can also use this menu to instantly mark or share your location.
Holding down on the Apple camera app will give you quick access to different shooting modes.
This includes Selfie, Portrait, Portrait Selfie, and Record Video.
But it’s not just Apple apps that have Quick Actions – it’s available to other apps too.
We recently revealed how WhatsApp has a hidden menu using this trick.
You can use it to quickly share your WhatsApp QR code, launch the in-app camera, start a new chat, or search your conversations.
And the Instagram menu will let you immediately start a Direct Message, view your activity, create a new post, or launch the app’s camera.
It’s worth experimenting with some of your favourite apps to see if they have a Quick Actions menu.
And once you get in the habit of using Quick Actions, you could save loads of time.
Your iPhone also has a physical hidden button – on the back.
It’s called “Back Tap”, and it was introduced with the iOS 14 software update rolled out to iPhones in 2020.
The little-known feature makes life much easier – letting you take screenshots and change the volume by simply tapping the rear of your handset.
To turn on the feature make sure you’ve updated to iOS 14 or later. To do that, go to Settings > General > Software update.
Then go to your Settings.
Scroll down and tap “Accessibility” and then click “Touch”.
Then scroll down to “Back Tap”.
You’ll have the choice to turn on “Double Tap” or “Triple Tap”.
Whichever you select gives you the same options.
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Click to see which features you can now control with either a double or triple tap on the back of your phone.
They include taking screenshots, turning the volume up or down, magnifying, scrolling and more.
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