One of the iPhone's best features has somewhat gone under the radar in the recent years largely due to how inconsistent it is to use, yet one Reddit thread has left Apple users in disbelief as they figure out how to get it to actually work.
If you've been an Apple fan for more than a couple of years then there's a good chance that you too were excited about the addition of 'back tap' in 2020 alongside the release of iOS 14, as it promised to add greater functionality to the iPhone.
While it's stayed there all these years, it has become increasingly niche for many iPhone owners, to the point where a large proportion probably don't even know it exists.
A big part of this is due to the difficulty that many people have in actually using the feature, as it feels incredibly inconsistent to actually activate whatever you've mapped the back taps to, to the point where it's quicker to just do the 'long' way instead of this shortcut.
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However, one Reddit thread reveals that you've probably been doing the back tap the 'wrong' way all these years, and that there's a more consistent and easier route to activating the underrated shortcut that you can learn.
As reported by the Sun, the thread originally posted on the r/iphone subreddit has someone sharing their frustration with back tap, calling it either 'too sensitive' or 'unresponsive' when trying to take a screenshot, which is what they've mapped it to.
As is usually the case with Reddit, someone immediately came to the rescue in the comments, offering a golden piece of advice that should hopefully help you also make the most out of back tap:
"I've noticed that if you tap up close to the camera area it works better," the commenter wrote, and it's surprising how effective this is in comparison. "Wow thanks man it actually worked," one user responded, so definitely give it a try yourself.
This is likely due to the area of the iPhone that the back tap functionality is sensitive to, as while most people would understandably assume that this would be around the Apple logo in the center of the phone, it's actually towards the camera bump in the top left.
Others have suggested that you should "tap gently" alongside aiming towards the camera, no matter how counterintuitive that might seem, and it'll probably take a couple of tries to get the perfect level of force to make this feature feel consistent.
Of course, you might still end up feeling like it's not worth the effort in the end, and others have even noted that it can sometimes accidentally activate when placed on a flat surface, but it's definitely worth testing out as it could save you a lot of time and effort when using your phone on the daily.