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Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones Review: Sony Has Serious Competition

Bose’s new flagship QC Ultra Headphones make a very compelling alternative to both the Sony WH-1000XM5 and Apple AirPods Max.

Back in 2015, Bose released a set of wired earbuds called the SoundTrue Ultra Earbuds that were among my favorite sounding Bose products. They were discontinued a few years ago, but Bose has brought back the Ultra name for its new flagship QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds ($299) and Quiet Comfort Ultra Headphones, which I’m reviewing here. At $429 (£450, AU$649), the latter are Bose’s most expensive headphones to date. 

Not surprisingly, they’re very good. But are they better than Sony’s WH-1000XM5, Apple’s AirPods Max and some other «premium» noise-canceling headphones in this price range? Let’s get right into the review so I can try to answer that for you.

Bose QC Ultra Headphones design

The QC Ultra Headphones’ design is totally new. It’s sort of a cross between Bose’s previous flagship model, the Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 and the QuietComfort 45s, which have morphed into a new $350 model that Bose has simply named the QuietComfort Headphones.

The Headphones 700 had some metal parts, but the QC Ultra Headphones incorporate an aluminum yoke and arms that slide into the headband. Another upgrade is their dual-hinge design so they both fold up and fold flat, which allows them to have a smaller carrying case than the Headphones 700 and the Sony WH-1000XM5s, both of which only fold flat. Just be careful not to get your finger caught in the Ultra’s hinge, which I did a couple of times and got an unpleasant pinch. 

The headphones feel durable and are surprisingly lightweight at 254 grams, just a couple of grams more than the Headphones 700. The Sony WH-1000XM5 weigh 249 grams, while the much heavier AirPods Max tip the scales at 385 grams.

The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones have a mix of physical buttons and touch controls
The Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones have a mix of physical buttons and touch controls

Bose reps told me the QC Ultras are designed to fit a wider range of head types and like other Bose headphones, they’re quite comfortable to wear. They did clamp slightly more than the Sonys, but I was able to wear them for a couple of hours straight without a problem. Like other over-ear headphones, they will steam up your ears if you wear them around in warm environments. It’s also worth mentioning that the black version of the headphones can end up showing some smudges if you have any grime on your hands or just have oily skin. The white smoke version doesn’t. 

I like their controls. The QC Ultra Headphones feature a mix of physical control buttons along with a raised capacitive touch volume strip on the right ear cup that’s easy to reach and use by feel alone. 

The main multifunction button on the headphones allows you to pause and play your audio with a single tap, skip tracks forward with a double tap and skip them back with a triple tap. Holding the button down lets you toggle through full noise canceling, an awareness mode and an immersion mode that activates full noise canceling along with Bose’s new spatial audio feature with head tracking that it calls Immersive Audio.

There’s also a touch-and-hold gesture for the volume strip that’s customizable as a shortcut. You can choose to map it to one of four functions: hear battery level, change Immersive Audio (cycle through still, motion and off settings), access your voice assistant and resume Spotify.

Bose QC Ultra Headphones features

While Bose mentions that both this over-ear Ultra model and its new QC Ultra Earbuds feature «world-class noise cancellation» — and they certainly do — the real feature it’s hyping this go-round is Immersive Audio, its custom version of spatial audio. Bose says Immersive Audio «goes beyond special effects and creates a wider, more spacious soundstage so your content becomes multi-dimensional and layered, regardless of the audio platform or device.»

Like other headphones that feature spatial audio — Apple’s latest AirPods, for instance — the QC Ultra Headphones and QC Ultra Earbuds have two spatial audio modes: one «still» mode without head-tracking engaged and a «motion» mode that uses head-tracking and allows the audio to «move with you, so it’s always in front of you.» Bose says it works with movies and any stereo track, but it’s really designed for music listening. 

Using the Immersive Audio feature does widen the soundstage, creating the illusion that your audio is more outside your head. It works better with some tracks than others, but it does open the sound a bit, giving it an airier quality. 

The Bose QC Ultra Headphones have a dual hinge design and fold up and flat
The Bose QC Ultra Headphones have a dual hinge design and fold up and flat

Most people will probably choose to mostly leave it on, but the downside is that engaging it does impact battery life significantly. The headphones are rated for up to 24 hours of battery life at moderate volumes levels with noise canceling on. But the number dips to 18 hours with Immersive Audio engaged.

The aware mode is equivalent to Apple’s transparency mode, and it sounds quite natural with almost no audible hiss. There’s also a new ActiveSense feature that kicks in some ANC should the sound get too loud around you (a horn blast, for instance, or a construction worker’s jack hammer). That’s similar to the AirPods Pro 2’s Adaptive Audio feature that isn’t available for the AirPods Max because it requires Apple’s H2 chip, which isn’t present in that model.

As I said, holding down the multifunction button allows you to toggle through three sound modes. I mentioned the default sound modes, but you can add additional sound modes in the app and then designate three of them as favorites so you can easily toggle through them. When creating a sound mode, you simply customize the level of noise canceling you want (anywhere from none to max) and decide whether you want Immersive Audio (still or motion) activated and wind noise reduction on or off. You can also tweak the sound profile with the app’s equalizer. 

Thanks to wear sensors in the ear cups, when you take the headphones off your ears, your audio will pause and resume playback when you put them back on. Beyond that, if you set your headphones down somewhere and forget to turn them off, they’ll go into a sleep mode to conserve battery life. You also have them completely turn off after a set period of time. The default setting is 24 hours, but you can change that in the Bose Music app to as little as five minutes. That sleep mode is similar to the AirPods Max’s power saving features.

Wearing the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Headphones in New York City

While the QC Ultra Earbuds still lack multipoint Bluetooth pairing — Bose is still working on adding that feature — which allows you to connect to two devices simultaneously and switch audio between them, both the QC Ultra Headphones and QC Headphones have it. I was able to switch back and forth between the audio on an iPhone 14 Pro and an Android device without any issue. The headphones will also pair with your computer, but computer Bluetooth audio can be more finicky, especially with older Windows PCs and Macs. 

The QC Ultra Headphones and QC Ultra Earbuds are equipped with Bluetooth 5.3, while the new QC Headphones use Bluetooth 5.1 and lack Bose’s Immersive Audio feature. 

Finally, both the Ultra models are LE Audio ready, which means they can be upgraded via a firmware update to include LE Audio features such as Auracast that would allow you to tune into audio broadcasts over Bluetooth, say from a TV at your gym. The LE Audio standard also includes support for the LC3 audio codec.

Modest improvements to already very good sound quality

I spent some time comparing the sound quality of the QC Ultra Headphones to that of the Sony WH-1000XM5 and AirPods Max. While the QC Ultra Headphones have the same drivers as the Headphones 700, the Ultras’ sound has improved from the 700’s. It’s not a huge improvement, but the Ultras’ seem slightly cleaner sounding and more revealing, with deep but well-defined bass. Since they feature the same drivers, most of the audio quality gains come from a more powerful chipset, which has improved digital processing power. Bose also has a feature that optimizes the sound for your particular ears.

Both the Sony XM5 and AirPods Max are excellent sounding headphones and sound quality is subjective, as everybody has different ears and different musical tastes. But I’d say this Bose is a touch ahead of both the Sony and the AirPods Max for sound quality. The Sony has a slightly warmer sound profile, and the Bose just comes across as slightly more natural sounding than the AirPods Max. By that I mean it sounds slightly more accurate. 

The QC Ultra Headphones go into a sleep mode when you take them off your head

Using the Immersive Audio mode does open up the sound, giving it an airier quality. Everything sounds a little more dynamic and vocals come forward a bit and there’s a bit more separation between instruments with more sparkle in the treble. When you switch back to stereo mode, everything sounds a little duller. You ears eventually adjust and you don’t notice as much, but the natural tendency will be for people to engage the Immersive Audio (whether you choose the still or motion mode is another matter). 

For testing, I mainly leave the equalizer at the default flat setting. It’s only a three-band equalizer — you can choose from a few presets or adjust the sliders yourself. Ideally it would be a five-band equalizer, but in years past, Bose didn’t allow you to adjust the sound (there was just the Bose signature sound), so having even this amount of control is a big plus. 

The headphones are fairly well-balanced in the default setting. Like Beats, Bose used to get criticized for having some bass push, but that’s not the case anymore. The bass is powerful but not overpowering and it remains tight, even at higher volumes. 

I used a few streaming services, including Apple Music, Spotify and Qobuz to listen to tracks and I also plugged the headphone cable in to have a listen in wired mode, both with and without a headphone amp. I didn’t really notice a bump in sound in wired mode, but I need to run some more tests to be sure. 

I listened to an eclectic mix of music. Tracks included Spoon’s Knock Knock Knock, Athletes of God’s Don’t Wanna Be Normal, Orbital’s Dirty Rat, Bjork’s Hollow, Drake’s Passionfruit, Pixies’ Vault of Heaven, Florence and The Machine’s Choreomania and various Foo Fighters tracks. The headphones seem well-suited for listening to a variety of music genres. 

What I don’t like

I was slightly disappointed the headphones don’t feature USB-C audio. You get a headphone cable for wired listening, which will come in handy for air travel. But with most smartphones now missing a headphone jack, it’d be nice to be able to plug a USB-C cable directly into your phone and have an all-digital wired connection for listening to lossless audio tracks. The Beats Studio Pro and some other headphones offer that feature. And now Android devices and the latest iPhones have USB-C connectivity.

I have one other small gripe. Bose has been using Qualcomm chipsets in its recent headphones, and it says both new QC Ultra models feature Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Sound Technology Suite (QCC5181 chipset) and have support for the aptX Adaptive audio codec, including lossless and low-latency capabilities for Android and other devices that offer aptX compatibility. There’s also Swift Pair for Android, while Apple users get the AAC audio codec, which is also compatible with Android devices. But I had some problems getting aptX to work because it turns out that some leading Android smartphone manufacturers, including Google and Samsung, have stopped paying the licensing fees for aptX.

I paired the headphones with a Google Pixel 7, which supports aptX audio, but it defaulted to the AAC audio code for HD Audio even after I accessed developer mode. (With Android devices, you sometimes have to turn on developer mode to gain access to additional audio codecs.) When I paired them with a Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 5, which is powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, the same thing happened. However, when I connected them to an Asus ROG Phone 6, another Snapdragon-enabled phone, I was able use aptX Adaptive. This inconsistent support is more of a Qualcomm problem than a Bose problem (how can a phone that uses Qualcomm’s top Snapdragon chipset not also support aptX?), but it does impact folks who buy these headphones expecting them to support aptX streaming when in fact it’s not supported by market-leading Android handsets like Samsung’s Galaxy devices.

Great noise canceling and excellent voice-calling performance 

I’ll finish by talking about the noise canceling and voice-calling performance. As I said, Bose isn’t talking up the noise canceling as much as it usually does. Maybe that’s because it’s as good as it is and speaks for itself. You can argue over whether Sony or Bose has better noise canceling — and Apple’s is also excellent — but I wore these in the raucous streets of New York and the headphones really muffled everything around me, including people’s voices. It’s top-notch.

Voice-calling performance is also excellent. I was told they have five microphones in each earcup (four external and one inside the earcup) that help drive both the noise-canceling and voice-calling performance. While I was slightly disappointed with how much background noise the QC Ultra Earbuds let in, that wasn’t an issue with these full-size Ultras. Even in noisy environments, callers said they heard only minimal background noise while my voice came through clearly. 

If you want to get a sense of the QC Ultra Headphones’ voice-calling performance, I show a test call in my companion video review of these headphones, so check that out. 

Why should I get these instead of the AirPods Max?

The AirPods Max are excellent headphones with a uniquely premium design that I rated highly and continue to recommend despite their elevated price. That said, they obviously appeal only to Apple users, while headphones like the Bose QC Ultra Headphones and Sony WH-1000XM5 are more platform-agnostic and have a appeal for both iOS and Android users.

It’s also worth noting that the AirPods Max are almost three years old and are probably due for an upgrade in the coming year. And while they’re surprisingly comfortable given how much they weigh, they’re still pretty heavy and don’t come with a headphone cable for wired listening (you have to purchase the cable separately). On top of that, the QC Ultra Headphones’ case is better than the controversial case that’s included with AirPods Max. The Bose also has slightly better noise canceling and may also have a slight edge for sound quality, depending on your audio tastes. And the Bose does cost a little less. 

Why should I get these instead of the Sony WH-1000XM5?

This a bit of a trickier question because I still like the WH-1000XM5s a lot — we gave them an Editors’ Choice award in 2022. The Sony is arguably a touch more comfortable than the Bose and also features excellent sound, great noise canceling and best-in-class voice-calling performance. But the Bose headphones both fold up and fold flat, so their carrying case is smaller, and the Bose arguably has slightly better sound and perhaps a touch better noise canceling. I think the Sony has a slight edge for voice calling but it’s not by much.

I prefer that the Sony has support for Sony’s LDAC audio codec (rather than aptX) and like Sony’s Speak-to-Chat feature that automatically pauses your audio and puts the headphones in transparency mode when you talk to someone, enabling you to have a conversation without taking your headphones off. Apple brought a similar feature to the AirPods Pro 2 — it calls the feature Conversation Awareness — but not the AirPods Max.

Bose’s companion app is more user-friendly than Sony’s, and the new Immersive Audio feature does offer some sound enhancements. How much is debatable, but it’s better than than Sony’s 360 Reality Audio simply because it works with any stereo tracks — not just tracks encoded for 360 Reality Audio.

When all is said and done, the Bose has the slight edge in my book, but the Sony will get the better discounts because it’s been on the market for more than a year and will hold a price advantage over the Bose until it also goes on sale. 

Bose QC Ultra Headphones final thoughts

Despite the fact that Bose made a bad decision when it moved away from its QuietComfort branding in 2019 when it released the poorly named Noise Cancelling Headphones 700, that headphone does have a lot of fans. The QuietComfort Ultra Headphones may not be a huge upgrade over the 700 (it has the same drivers after all), it does offer some meaningful improvements both in terms of its design and performance. If I were a 700 owner, I wouldn’t be in a rush to run out in buy if my headphones were still in good condition, but I’d certainly be tempted to upgrade if and when the Ultras go on sale. 

I do think the QC Ultra Headphones are a compelling alternative to the Sony WH-1000XM5s and Apple AirPods Max, and also hold a slight edge over such premium models as the Bowers & Wilkins PX7 S2E ($400), another very good set of headphones. If these models are a little out of your price range, the Sennheiser Momentum 4 Wireless, which have dipped to as low as $250 in a sale, are an option. So, too, are the Beats Studio Pro, which dropped to $180 for fall Prime Day and should see discounts during the holidays.

But if you’re looking for the best noise-canceling headphones, the Bose QC Ultra Headphones are certainly at or near the top of the heap, even with their small downsides. Hopefully, over time they’ll get even better with a few firmware upgrades.

Technologies

Lemon8 and TikTok Could Be Banned. Here’s How the Apps Are Different

TikTok and Lemon8 are owned by the same parent company, but they offer different experiences.

TikTok faces another sale deadline Saturday, and unless a US buyer intervenes — or President Donald Trump extends the deadline again — the app could disappear for US users. If the ban goes into effect, TikTok wouldn’t be the only app to disappear: TikTok’s sister app, Lemon8, could be caught in the crossfire.

Read more: A VPN Alone Probably Won’t Bypass TikTok Bans. Here’s Why

Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance, the same parent company that owns TikTok. It’s one of the top Lifestyle apps in Apple’s App Store, and it has more than 10 million downloads in the Google Play store.

«Lemon8 is a lifestyle community focused app powered by TikTok, where you can discover and share authentic content on a variety of topics such as beauty, fashion, travel, food, and more,» the app’s description reads in both stores.

Here’s what you need to know about Lemon8.

Note: I reached out to ByteDance for this story, and the company did not respond for comment.

What is Lemon8?

Lemon8 is a video- and photo-sharing platform that eschews the vertical-scrolling format of TikTok in favor of a Pinterest board-style format. But what Lemon8 and TikTok do have in common is that both have Following and For You tabs to show you posts from creators you follow and posts the app thinks you will like.

Lemon8’s content is split into six topic tabs, plus a seventh tab called All. The other tabs are Fashion, Beauty, Food, Wellness, Travel and Home. These tabs can be found across the top of your screen, and tapping into these tabs shows you recommended and suggested posts. 

Posts can be swipeable photo collections like in Instagram, or TikTok-style videos. Some creators add text to their photos to label clothing or a product. Some will also include the price of the item in the text. 

How is Lemon8 different from TikTok and other apps?

Lemon8 is different from other apps in terms of what is posted and how it’s presented.

Lemon8 has a lot of influencer ads and product recommendations. It’s difficult to tell what is and isn’t sponsored content, and this appears to be the norm across the app. TikTok also has sponsored content, but usually these are marked as such in the bottom-left corner. 

There aren’t a lot of memes or jokes on Lemon8 compared to other apps, either. You can find memes on Lemon8, but various hashtags associated with «memes,» like «funnymemes» and «catmemes,» have fewer than 1 million views (as opposed to hundreds of millions on Instagram). This could be because Lemon8 is still catching on in the US, but my suspicion is Lemon8 isn’t meant for memes. It’s meant to be more of a guidebook to help you achieve a certain lifestyle or aesthetic. 

There’s also a lot of writing in Lemon8. For example, post captions might include instructions for a recipe or a deeper breakdown of an outfit. TikTok captions can have useful information, but those captions are more about connecting posts to hashtags to get more views and don’t necessarily add new information to the TikTok post. Lemon8 uses captions in a similar way to Instagram posts, but Lemon8 captions have one key difference from Instagram: templates. 

Lemon8 lets you use templates for your posts to help you quickly format and to give you an idea of what to caption your post. There are caption templates for fashion, shopping finds, beauty, food and travel.

Lemon8 reminds me of a mashup between the magazines Martha Stewart Living, Muscle & Fitness and Travel + Leisure. You can find some useful tips in Lemon8 to help you achieve a desired aesthetic or find some vacation inspiration, but it’s not clear what is and isn’t an ad.

What are people saying about Lemon8?

People’s reaction to Lemon8 is seemingly positive so far. One TikTok creator posted a video calling Lemon8 «Pinterest, but interactive.» Another said Lemon8 is a combination of Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok.

However, this positivity could be artificially inflated. ZDNet reports that many TikTok posts about Lemon8 have described the app with similar language, making some believe ByteDance paid these creators. 

And some Lemon8 creators’ claims make this theory sound more viable. One Lemon8 creator told Insider that ByteDance paid them to post on the app. Two other Lemon8 creators showed Insider emails that outlined the app’s payment structure. 

Who owns Lemon8?

ByteDance, the Chinese tech company that owns TikTok, also owns Lemon8. According to ZDNet, ByteDance is positioning Lemon8 to be an Instagram rival as more users stop using, or abandon, Meta’s app. 

According to the Wall Street Journal, a leaked internal memo from Meta showed that Instagram engagement was declining. ByteDance executives could be hoping to capitalize on this by giving Instagram users an alternative app in the form of Lemon8. And while Lemon8 was released globally in 2020, the app’s recent growth might show ByteDance’s gamble is paying off.

Will Lemon8 be banned alongside TikTok?

Since Lemon8 is owned by ByteDance, which also owns TikTok, it’s possible that the app will be banned alongside TikTok on April 5. 

The law requiring the sale of TikTok could be applied generally to other apps that are owned and operated by ByteDance and its subsidiaries. When TikTok shutdown operations in the US in January, Lemon8 was shutdown alongside the app. If TikTok shuts down again, Lemon8 likely will as well.

Should you download Lemon8?

Even with a shutdown looming, Lemon8 is free, so you can download and try the app now before the sale deadline. Just know the app’s posts resemble instructional guides more than memes to share, and many posts feel like advertisements. 

What’s Lemon8’s privacy policy?

Most of Lemon8’s privacy policy seems standard for social media apps. It states Lemon8 collects personal and location information to provide you with a better app experience. Some collected information includes your IP address and browsing history. But part of the app’s privacy policy might raise eyebrows.

«The personal information we collect from you may be stored on a server located outside of the country where you live,» the policy reads. The company has servers around the world, according to the policy, so your information could be stored in any of them.

This is different from how Lemon8’s sister app TikTok stores some user’s data. The company stores US-based user data in Oracle servers. TikTok CEO Shou Chew said ByteDance employees in China can access this data, but with «robust cybersecurity controls and authorization approval» overseen by a US-based security team. 

For more on the TikTok ban, here’s what to know about the Supreme Court’s decision, here’s what could happen next and here are other apps users are flocking to.

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Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 4, #193

Three of the four categories are especially tough today. Here are hints and the answers, for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 193, for April 4.

Looking for the most recent regular 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 and Strands puzzles.


I only solved one of the four categories for today’s Connections: Sports Edition on my own, so if you need help, you’re not alone. 

The yellow category was pretty simple, but after that I couldn’t make any connections. It might help if you know a lot about a certain NBA player’s resume. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.  

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

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

Yellow group hint: Do better.

Green group hint: March Madness.

Blue group hint: Six-time all-star.

Purple group hint:  Think Wimbledon.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Not meeting expectations.

Green group: Teams in the Women’s Final Four.

Blue group: Teams Kawhi Leonard has played for.

Purple group: Ends in a piece of tennis equipment.

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

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is not meeting expectations. The four answers are bust, disappointment, dud and failure.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams in the Women’s Final Four. The four answers are Bruins, Gamecocks, Huskies and Longhorns.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams Kawhi Leonard has played for. The four answers are Aztecs, Clippers, Raptors and Spurs.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends in a piece of tennis equipment. The four answers are bracket, eyeball, horseshoes and internet.

Quick tips for Connections: Sports Edition

#1: Don’t grab for the easiest group. For each word, think about other sports categories it might fit in – is this a word that can be used in football, or to describe scoring options?

#2: Second meanings are important. The puzzle loves to use last names and even college names that mean other things, to fool you into thinking they are words, not names.

#3: And the opposite is also true. Words like HURTS might seem like a regular word, but it’s also the last name of at least one pro athlete.

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Technologies

Skip Your iPhone’s Lockscreen: Here’s the Hidden Flashlight Trick You Need to Know

A couple of taps can really make a difference on your iPhone.

Not long ago, your iPhone’s lockscreen would only allow two app shortcuts that you couldn’t change: camera controls and a flashlight toggle. However, iOS 18.2 allows you to customize these shortcuts to almost anything you might want. This small but impactful change is one of many ways iOS 18 supercharges customization for iPhone and iPad users. But what if you still want an easy-to-access way to toggle your flashlight without unlocking your phone? 

Apple introduced an accessibility feature in iOS 14 that, once enabled, allows you to perform actions by just tapping on the back of your phone. The feature is called Tap Back and it remains a sleeper feature that’s sneakily hidden away in your settings menu. Enabling Tap Back essentially allows you to create a button on the back of your iPhone to perform an action without needing to take up any space. 

Once you have Tap Back enabled, it doesn’t take long to see how much of a game-changer it can be with its added convenience. Below, we’ll show you how to set it up so a couple of taps on the back of your iPhone will let you launch just about anything you want. 

For more, check out what’s in the latest iOS 18.4 release.

How to set up Back Tap on iPhone

Whether you want to link Back Tap with your flashlight, camera or launch a different iPhone app, the path through your iPhone settings begins the same way.

On your compatible iPhone (iPhone 8 or later), launch the Settings application and go to Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. Now you have the option to launch your action (in this case, your flashlight) with either two or three taps. Although two taps is obviously faster, I would suggest three taps because if you fidget with your phone, it’s easy to accidentally trigger the accessibility feature. 

Once you choose a tap option, select the Flashlight option — or a different action if you prefer. You’ll see over 30 options to choose from, including system options like Siri or taking a screenshot, to accessibility-specific functions like opening a magnifier or turning on real-time live captions. You can also set up Back Tap to open the Control Center, go back home, mute your audio, turn the volume up and down and run any shortcuts you’ve downloaded or created.

You’ll know you’ve successfully selected your choice when a blue checkmark appears to the right of the action. You could actually set up two shortcuts this way — one that’s triggered by two taps and one that’s triggered by three taps to the iPhone’s back cover.

Once you exit the Settings application, you can try out the newly enabled Back Tap feature by tapping the back of your iPhone — in my case, to turn on the flashlight. To turn off the flashlight, you can tap on the back of your iPhone as well, but you can also just turn it off from your lock screen if that’s easier.

For more great iPhone tips, here’s how to keep your iPhone screen from dimming all the time and canceling all those subscriptions you don’t want or need.

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