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I think I'm the only person who likes iOS's reachability gesture. The only annoying thing about it is sometimes it will trigger touchUpInside for buttons along

I think I'm the only person who likes iOS's reachability gesture. The only annoying thing about it is sometimes it will trigger touchUpInside for buttons along the bottom of the screen, navigating me away from the screen I was on.

threatofrain 6y ago
IMO the reachability gesture improves about 20% of situations where one more tap is required, and for all the other situations I find I need more than one tap.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I would say my usage is inverted. 80% of the time it's one-tap; however, of that 80%, 90% is just hitting the back button. Move the back button to the bottom where it's reachable with one hand and ~75% of the use case for reachability is solved (for me, at least).
throwaway894345 6y ago
I fully agree. It's insane that Apple makes screens too big to use with one hand AND puts important controls like the back button at the top of the screen. Like you were saying, it's really frustrating that the reachability gesture triggers things in apps--e.g., Twitter's navigation menu completely overlaps with the reachability gesture area, so you can virtually never hit the "back" button because the reachability gesture will reliably send you to Twitter's "search" page.
- Bud 6y ago
  You don't need to use the back button anymore, if that helps. You can now double-tap anywhere on the back of the phone to go Back.
  - throwaway894345 6y ago
    Oh, that's cool, but that's iPhone 12 only, right? Not iPhone 11?
    - TurkTurkleton 6y ago
      It was added in iOS 14. Not hardware specific. It works on my iPhone 11 Pro Max. It's an accessibility feature that has to be specifically turned on though.
      - cyberpunk 6y ago
        How do you actually make it go 'back' though? I only have options like "home" etc.. ?
    - lemoncucumber 6y ago
      It should work on an iPhone 11 as long as you've upgraded to iOS 14. It's supported the iPhone 8 and newer: https://screenrant.com/apple-ios-14-back-tap-iphone-list/ https://screenrant.com/apple-ios-14-back-tap-iphone-list/
      - Bud 6y ago
        It uses the accelerometer that has already been built in to iPhones going way way back (actually ALL iPhones have at least a 3-axis accelerometer), so that's why there is so much support for older devices.
  - mrgordon 6y ago
    I see how to set up Back Tap but none of the options seem to function as a "back" button. Which option did you set it to?
    - niteshade 6y ago
      I had the same issue - it eventually started working after restarting the phone.
- antipaul 6y ago
  Isn’t “Back” usually just a swipe from the left edge of the screen?? (Admittedly not 100% always and probably not on non-native apps)
  - iso947 6y ago
    As a right handed person my thumb reaches the left edge of my 2016SE, but any further would be an uncomfortable stretch. From my XR experience there was an option to shift the keyboard to the side, so they acknowledge the design flaw.
conductr 6y ago
I forget about it when I need it and it gets in my way when I don’t. It’s a good feature though I just haven’t worked into my flow.
_jal 6y ago
It is a software-bandaid to cover the physical design problem of a one-handed device that is too big to be used with one hand. I realize that research shows people use bigger phones more, but I'm the odd one out. I've been on the X, and it is too big. I use my phone far less than I did when they were smaller. It is just awkward and annoying. I'll have to hold the Mini to see if it is small enough to actually make a difference, I might actually buy a new phone before the old one croaks. The 4 was the best them, in my opinion.
- vmception 6y ago
  bandaid is a strong word to describe a feature I love I actually consider individual app designs the problem iOS navigation is such that you shouldnt need to use the top portion of the screen, to go back you can swipe from the left edge to right, except some apps override that default behavior
  - naravara 6y ago
    > iOS navigation is such that you shouldnt need to use the top portion of the screen, to go back you can swipe from the left edge to right, except some apps override that default behavior This was true with the first jumbo phones, but is less the case now. Notification Center and the Control Center both require you to swipe down from the top of the screen. The "Back to previous app" function is also a very narrow touch target all the way at the topmost left edge of the screen.
    - vmception 6y ago
      and I am content using reachability to get to it miniswipe on the bottom, miniswipe from the center of the screen if you weren't using iphones for the last 5 years I can see how it would be perceived as an antipattern. if you've been using computers for a while though, then I've seen worse.
- bamboozled 6y ago
  I want to use my phone less, so this is a feature IMO.
kempbellt 6y ago
I may be the only person who has never taken the time to figure out how to intentionally call the reachability feature. I just know that sometimes everything shifts down on the screen and it has never been on purpose, and then I have to figure out how to undo it - usually by turning the screen off and back on. I am on the 11 (I think? I've lost track, but its the one with three cameras), and the screen is slightly too large for easy one-handed use, at least in my case. I might opt for the mini if/when I decided to get a new phone, but throwing $1000 at a new toy just because it's slightly more comfortable in my hand feels like a very "first-world" solution to a not-really-problem. None of the other features this phone comes with feel like they bring any extra value to my life or warrant an upgrade. But hey, newer, faster chips mean it can probably run Doom now, right?
- simonklitj 6y ago
  Trigger reachability by swiping down on the home bar at the bottom of the screen. Disable it by swiping up or tapping the emptiness at the top.
  - kempbellt 6y ago
    Wow that was easy once it was explained... Thank you internet stranger. I can now operate the device I carry on my person all the time with a little more grace.
    - simonklitj 6y ago
      No worries. I’m sometimes thinking they ought to include a gesture tutorial when setting up the device!
- 1_player 6y ago
  You and me both, friend. I hate reachability with a passion, for the simple fact that when I got my first iPhone I had never heard of the feature, and it's literally taken me 1 year to understand why sometimes my screen would look weird. No amount of Googling or searching the settings helped, until someone mentioned the magic keyword "Reachability". Which then was easy to disable. So it might be a cool feature, but if you don't know about it you'll go mad trying to understand what is wrong with your phone. And it's not like Apple is good at teaching users about power user gestures. I still feel I'm not using my iPhone at its full capacity yet.
mortenjorck 6y ago
Reachability has come a long way, too. On TouchID phones, it was always fiddly, double-touching (but not pressing) the home button, but the gesture that replaced it on FaceID devices feels natural. I was originally apprehensive about moving to a larger phone yet again after the iPhone 6, but it has more or less made "big phones" a non-issue for me. There are one or two apps I use that seem to reliably have the touchUpInside issue you describe, so I wonder if it's down to their implementation. The Redfin app in particular is terrible with this.
- imron 6y ago
  > On TouchID phones, it was always fiddly, double-touching (but not pressing) the home button As someone with a touch ID phone who didn’t know about this feature - thank you! This will change how I use my phone.
nojito 6y ago
I actually set reachability to that new backtap feature in ios 14 and it's game changing.
- robbyking 6y ago
  I did that, too, until I realized I tap the back of my phone when I'm thinking.
- naravara 6y ago
  I just configured this and it seems kind of clunky? The phone seems pretty inconsistent about registering the taps and even when it does it's slow to respond.
vmception 6y ago
You aren’t the only one, I love the standard iPhone size and switched away from Android the exact moment iphones went away from the Fisher Price toy look at the same time, I have larger hands (proportionate for someone thats 6 feet tall) and I dont understand why people like the Max series! so its all preferences and Apple has the pulse on the market correctly that the market can tolerate multiple SKUs at different sizes
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

threatofrain 6y ago

IMO the reachability gesture improves about 20% of situations where one more tap is required, and for all the other situations I find I need more than one tap.

throwaway894345 6y ago
I would say my usage is inverted. 80% of the time it's one-tap; however, of that 80%, 90% is just hitting the back button. Move the back button to the bottom where it's reachable with one hand and ~75% of the use case for reachability is solved (for me, at least).

throwaway894345 6y ago

I fully agree. It's insane that Apple makes screens too big to use with one hand AND puts important controls like the back button at the top of the screen. Like you were saying, it's really frustrating that the reachability gesture triggers things in apps--e.g., Twitter's navigation menu completely overlaps with the reachability gesture area, so you can virtually never hit the "back" button because the reachability gesture will reliably send you to Twitter's "search" page.

Bud 6y ago
You don't need to use the back button anymore, if that helps. You can now double-tap anywhere on the back of the phone to go Back.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  Oh, that's cool, but that's iPhone 12 only, right? Not iPhone 11?
  - TurkTurkleton 6y ago
    It was added in iOS 14. Not hardware specific. It works on my iPhone 11 Pro Max. It's an accessibility feature that has to be specifically turned on though.
    - cyberpunk 6y ago
      How do you actually make it go 'back' though? I only have options like "home" etc.. ?
  - lemoncucumber 6y ago
    It should work on an iPhone 11 as long as you've upgraded to iOS 14. It's supported the iPhone 8 and newer: https://screenrant.com/apple-ios-14-back-tap-iphone-list/ https://screenrant.com/apple-ios-14-back-tap-iphone-list/
    - Bud 6y ago
      It uses the accelerometer that has already been built in to iPhones going way way back (actually ALL iPhones have at least a 3-axis accelerometer), so that's why there is so much support for older devices.
- mrgordon 6y ago
  I see how to set up Back Tap but none of the options seem to function as a "back" button. Which option did you set it to?
  - niteshade 6y ago
    I had the same issue - it eventually started working after restarting the phone.
antipaul 6y ago
Isn’t “Back” usually just a swipe from the left edge of the screen?? (Admittedly not 100% always and probably not on non-native apps)
- iso947 6y ago
  As a right handed person my thumb reaches the left edge of my 2016SE, but any further would be an uncomfortable stretch. From my XR experience there was an option to shift the keyboard to the side, so they acknowledge the design flaw.

conductr 6y ago

I forget about it when I need it and it gets in my way when I don’t. It’s a good feature though I just haven’t worked into my flow.

_jal 6y ago

It is a software-bandaid to cover the physical design problem of a one-handed device that is too big to be used with one hand. I realize that research shows people use bigger phones more, but I'm the odd one out. I've been on the X, and it is too big. I use my phone far less than I did when they were smaller. It is just awkward and annoying. I'll have to hold the Mini to see if it is small enough to actually make a difference, I might actually buy a new phone before the old one croaks. The 4 was the best them, in my opinion.

vmception 6y ago
bandaid is a strong word to describe a feature I love I actually consider individual app designs the problem iOS navigation is such that you shouldnt need to use the top portion of the screen, to go back you can swipe from the left edge to right, except some apps override that default behavior
- naravara 6y ago
  > iOS navigation is such that you shouldnt need to use the top portion of the screen, to go back you can swipe from the left edge to right, except some apps override that default behavior This was true with the first jumbo phones, but is less the case now. Notification Center and the Control Center both require you to swipe down from the top of the screen. The "Back to previous app" function is also a very narrow touch target all the way at the topmost left edge of the screen.
  - vmception 6y ago
    and I am content using reachability to get to it miniswipe on the bottom, miniswipe from the center of the screen if you weren't using iphones for the last 5 years I can see how it would be perceived as an antipattern. if you've been using computers for a while though, then I've seen worse.
bamboozled 6y ago
I want to use my phone less, so this is a feature IMO.

kempbellt 6y ago

I may be the only person who has never taken the time to figure out how to intentionally call the reachability feature. I just know that sometimes everything shifts down on the screen and it has never been on purpose, and then I have to figure out how to undo it - usually by turning the screen off and back on. I am on the 11 (I think? I've lost track, but its the one with three cameras), and the screen is slightly too large for easy one-handed use, at least in my case. I might opt for the mini if/when I decided to get a new phone, but throwing $1000 at a new toy just because it's slightly more comfortable in my hand feels like a very "first-world" solution to a not-really-problem. None of the other features this phone comes with feel like they bring any extra value to my life or warrant an upgrade. But hey, newer, faster chips mean it can probably run Doom now, right?

simonklitj 6y ago
Trigger reachability by swiping down on the home bar at the bottom of the screen. Disable it by swiping up or tapping the emptiness at the top.
- kempbellt 6y ago
  Wow that was easy once it was explained... Thank you internet stranger. I can now operate the device I carry on my person all the time with a little more grace.
  - simonklitj 6y ago
    No worries. I’m sometimes thinking they ought to include a gesture tutorial when setting up the device!
1_player 6y ago
You and me both, friend. I hate reachability with a passion, for the simple fact that when I got my first iPhone I had never heard of the feature, and it's literally taken me 1 year to understand why sometimes my screen would look weird. No amount of Googling or searching the settings helped, until someone mentioned the magic keyword "Reachability". Which then was easy to disable. So it might be a cool feature, but if you don't know about it you'll go mad trying to understand what is wrong with your phone. And it's not like Apple is good at teaching users about power user gestures. I still feel I'm not using my iPhone at its full capacity yet.

mortenjorck 6y ago

Reachability has come a long way, too. On TouchID phones, it was always fiddly, double-touching (but not pressing) the home button, but the gesture that replaced it on FaceID devices feels natural. I was originally apprehensive about moving to a larger phone yet again after the iPhone 6, but it has more or less made "big phones" a non-issue for me. There are one or two apps I use that seem to reliably have the touchUpInside issue you describe, so I wonder if it's down to their implementation. The Redfin app in particular is terrible with this.

imron 6y ago
> On TouchID phones, it was always fiddly, double-touching (but not pressing) the home button As someone with a touch ID phone who didn’t know about this feature - thank you! This will change how I use my phone.

nojito 6y ago

I actually set reachability to that new backtap feature in ios 14 and it's game changing.

robbyking 6y ago
I did that, too, until I realized I tap the back of my phone when I'm thinking.
naravara 6y ago
I just configured this and it seems kind of clunky? The phone seems pretty inconsistent about registering the taps and even when it does it's slow to respond.

vmception 6y ago

You aren’t the only one, I love the standard iPhone size and switched away from Android the exact moment iphones went away from the Fisher Price toy look at the same time, I have larger hands (proportionate for someone thats 6 feet tall) and I dont understand why people like the Max series! so its all preferences and Apple has the pulse on the market correctly that the market can tolerate multiple SKUs at different sizes

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]