Apple added a new button on the iPhone and most of us missed it

It was a subtle, smart addition and might have slipped most iPhone users. Remember the double and triple back taps on the iPhone? That’s what it was.

The ‘Back Tap’ feature is exactly what the name says it is - you tap on the back of your phone for some actions. (Apple )

Apple's iOS 14 brought in a whole lot of software features and one hardware feature as well. Essentially, Apple slipped in a whole new button on the iPhone and most iPhone users might have missed it.

Now, if you are going to start scrutinising your phone for a physical button, you won't find one, obviously. What Apple did is, with the iOS 14 update, it turned the entire back panel of the smartphone into a touch-sensitive zone that would register taps. That's the new Back Tap feature that acts as handy shortcuts to many of Apple's in-device functions like screenshots and screen lock.

The ‘Back Tap' feature is exactly what the name says it is - you tap on the back of your phone for some actions. Now, what actions you want to choose is customisable and there is a lot to choose from. You can assign a different action to double taps and to triple taps.

However, this Back Tap feature is not turned on by default. You need to turn it on and this is what you need to do for that -

- Go to Settings

- Click on ‘Accessibility', then click on ‘Touch'

- Now, scroll down to ‘Back Tap'

- Once you click on this, you will get two options -Double Tap and Triple Tap.

- Go to each one and you will see a whole host of actions you can choose from.

Besides actions like Siri, mute, lock, screenshot etc, you can also pick from other accessibility options like Speak Screen, Magnifier and Smart Invert.

The ‘Back Tap' makes it easier for you to access your phone. Like for example - we picked screen lock for the double-tap and screenshot for the triple tap. While locking the iPhone just needs a press on the power button and is easy to do while using the iPhone with just one hand - you can save a split second here by choosing to lock the device with a double back tap instead.

Something like a screenshot on the iPhone is harder since you need to press the Volume Up button and the power button together. And that requires a wee bit of maneuvering. Assigning the screenshot function to one of the back taps makes it easier for you to take quick screenshots as and when you need.

While all this is quite fun and quite a useful feature to turn on, the back tap feature only works on iPhones that are iPhone 8 and newer. Also, this feature is not available on the iPad. You can turn it off the same way you turned it on, in case you want to stop using the feature.