Technologies

Want to Open an iPhone App Without Touching the Screen? Here’s How

You can launch any app and perform other useful functions just by tapping the back of your iPhone.

If you don’t have an iPhone 16, you might think you’re missing out on the new Camera Control button that lets you quickly open the camera app. Luckily, if you have an iPhone from the past few years, there’s already a hidden «button» that can open the camera — or any other app. To access it, all you need to do is tap the back of your device.

The feature is part of the Back Tap tool in your iPhone’s accessibility settings. Once enabled, it can trigger almost anything your phone can do, from turning on the flashlight to opening Shazam before a song ends. You can even set it to open the Control Center, take a screenshot or run a custom Shortcut with two or three quick taps. It’s fast, discreet and surprisingly powerful once you set it up.

The feature is called Back Tap and, like the Action Button on newer iPhones, it gives you one more way to interact with your device without touching the screen. You can activate it by tapping anywhere on the back of your phone, including on the camera module. The best part is that it works even if you have a fairly thick case on your iPhone.

Back Tap is available on iPhones as old as iPhone 8, as long as they’re running iOS 14 or later. We’ll show you how to enable it and how to use it with your Shortcuts app for nearly endless possibilities.

Read more: All the Ways the iPhone 16’s Camera Control Button Will Change Your iPhone Photography

What is the iPhone Back Tap feature?

Back Tap is an iPhone feature introduced in iOS 14. It lets you perform shortcuts on your iPhone by double or triple tapping on the back of the device.

You can customize Back Tap on your iPhone to easily perform common actions like pulling up the Control Center or Notification Center, especially useful if you have a larger phone and can’t swipe down from the top of the screen without some complex finger gymnastics. You can even have two separate functions enabled at the same time: Back Tap can distinguish between a Double Tap and a Triple Tap.

Depending on the number of times you touch the back of your iPhone, you can set Double Tap to open your Notification Center and Triple Tap to take a screenshot. Or, you can make Double Tap open the Control Center and Triple Tap launch the Magnifier app. Experiment with Back Tap to find the right combinations of taps and functions that best fit your needs.

And you aren’t limited to just the Back Tap options that are available by default. Thanks to the Shortcuts app, you can set up Back Tap to perform specific functions or launch any app. For example, you can create a simple shortcut that opens Shazam or starts a voice recording, then activate it with a quick Double Tap or Triple Tap. You can also use Back Tap to trigger a more elaborate shortcut, such as automatically sending photos and videos to specific photo albums.

How do I set up Back Tap on my iPhone?

To enable Back Tap, go to your Settings app. Then go to Accessibility → Touch → Back Tap. There, you’ll find a list of options for configuring Double Tap and Triple Tap.

Here is the full list of functions that you can map to a Double Tap or Triple Tap:

None
Accessibility Shortcut

System

App Switcher
Camera
Control Center
Flashlight
Home
Lock Rotation
Lock Screen
Mute
Notification Center
Reachability
Screenshot
Shake
Spotlight
Volume Down
Volume Up

Accessibility

AssistiveTouch
Background Sounds
Classic Invert
Color Filters
Control Nearby Devices
Dim Flashing Lights
Live Captions
Live Speech
Magnifier
Smart Invert
Speak Screen
VoiceOver
Zoom
Zoom Controller

Scroll Gestures

Scroll Down
Scroll Up

At the bottom of the menu, you’ll also see a list of Shortcuts. These options will vary depending on what’s available in your Shortcuts app.

The one potential downside to Back Tap is that you don’t get any tactile feedback when you use it so you might accidentally trigger it at the wrong time and not realize it until later. For instance, you might double tap without meaning to and set off your flashlight by accident. In that case, you might want to remap your Double Tap to a less conspicuous function. Or, you can leave Double Tap off and only use Triple Tap, which you probably won’t trigger as often.

How do I use Back Tap to take a quick photo?

One way to set up Back Tap is to map Double Tap to the Camera and Triple Tap to Volume Up or Volume Down. Because you can press either of the volume buttons to instantly take a picture, you can get the same effect if your volume buttons are mapped to Back Tap. With this combination, you can capture a photo with five quick taps on the back of your iPhone (though you’ll have to pause briefly between performing the Double Tap and Triple Tap, so that your phone can distinguish between the two actions).

This Back Tap combination even works if your phone is locked. Again, spend some time trying out different combinations of taps and features to find which ones are most useful for you.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 2, #967

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 2 #967

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle is a fun one for fans of Agatha Christie, as the last name of one of her detectives shows up in the grid. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Time.

Green group hint: Need to get in.

Blue group hint: Characters in a certain genre of books.

Purple group hint: They grow in the forest, sometimes, but there’s a twist.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Duration.

Green group: Credentials for entry.

Blue group: Modern crime series protagonists.

Purple group: Trees plus a letter.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is duration. The four answers are interval, period, span and stretch.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is credentials for entry. The four answers are lanyard, pass, stamp and wristband.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is modern crime series protagonists. The four answers are Bosch, Cross, Reacher and Ryan.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is trees plus a letter. The four answers are fair (fir), Marple (maple), popular (poplar) and psalm (palm).

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

I Found the 9 Best Gifts for Someone Who Isn’t Gonna Watch the Super Bowl

Here are some great gifts for loved ones who see Super Bowl Sunday as just a regular Sunday.

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Super Bowl LX is this Sunday at 6:30 p.m. ET, and a lot of us are excited to watch the game, the halftime or both. But let’s face it, NFL games aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. If you know someone whose birthday falls around now or want to show a non-football fan how much you appreciate them, we’ve got a list of gifts that’ll do the trick.

Technologies

NordVPN Software Blocked 92% of Phishing Emails in Independent Testing

Phishing attempts continue to grow with help from generative AI and its believable deepfakes and voice impersonations.

NordVPN’s anti-malware software Threat Protection Pro blocked 92% of phishing websites in an independent lab test of several antivirus products, browsers and VPNs in results released this week.

AV-Comparatives, based in Austria, attacked 15 products with 250 websites — all verified to be valid phishing URLs — in a test that ran Jan. 7 to 19. The lab said the products were tested in parallel and with active internet/cloud access. The Google Chrome browser was used for antivirus and VPN testing.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Phishing is a form of cyberattack in which a malicious actor tries to get someone to go «fishing,» with malicious URLs as bait. These phishing attempts might be sent in emails, but they also appear on websites, in texts and in voicemails.

You might get an email that says your bank account has been hacked and you should click on a URL to solve the problem. Or an email says you’ve won a big prize, instructing you to click on a URL to redeem. During tax season, the amount of scam emails and texts increases dramatically, with AI often used to ramp up the numbers. CNET offers tips for how to detect phishing attempts on even the most sophisticated of emails.

«By creating a sense of trust and urgency, cybercriminals hope to prevent you from thinking critically about their bait message so that they can gain access to your sensitive or personal information like your password, credit card numbers, user data, etc,» warns the US State Department website. «These cybercriminals may target specific individuals, known as spear phishing, or cast a wide net to attempt to catch as many victims as possible.»

In the AV-Comparatives test, which evaluated phishing-page detection and false-positive rates, NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro ranked fourth among security products, blocking 92% of the 250 phishing URLs tested. The highest scoring included:

Avast Free Antivirus 95%
Norton Antivirus Plus 95%
Webroot SecureAnywhere Internet Security Plus 93%

On its website, NordVPN says Threat Protection Pro protects devices even when they are not connected to a VPN. The company says the software can thwart phishing attempts and prevent malware from infecting your computer in several ways — alerts about malicious websites; blocking cookies that can learn about your browsing habits; and stopping pop-ups and intrusive ads.

According to cybersecurity company Hoxhunt, the total volume of phishing attacks has skyrocketed by 4,151% since the advent of ChatGPT in 2022, with a cost to companies of $4.88 million per phishing breach.

With the rapid expansion of AI across the internet, the volume of phishing attacks is growing. Some AI-generated phishing scams are able to get past email filters, but Hoxhunt found that only 0.7% to 4.7% of phishing emails were written by AI. However, cybercriminals are using AI to expand their phishing tools. AI can create deepfake videos and voice-impersonation phone calls to redirect payments or gain access to sensitive data.

AI scams will be tough to root out. CNET reported that 62% of executives had been targets of phishing attempts, including voice- and text-based scams, with 37% reporting invoice or payment fraud, all from generative AI.

Although NordVPN’s product might be effective at preventing malware from infecting your computer, it can’t eliminate malware that may already be on it. To clean up those issues, CNET lists the best antivirus software of 2026 and the best free antivirus apps. Those products can scan your computer and hopefully eradicate any malware and viruses that might be there.