Your iPhone has 1,000 features. You know maybe ten. The rest have been buried in obscure menus, shipping with every phone since the dawn of time. You’ve never needed them until now, but when that need arises… you suddenly wish those features were easier to find. Here are three that deserve more attention.
The first and most useful hidden feature is Back Tap. If you are injured, disabled or simply have the opposite of nimble fingers, your iPhone might as well be a smooth cube of glass with no buttons. But if you enable back tap in your accessibility settings, you can control the whole device by tapping the back.
Back tap goes beyond practical
People with disabilities use back tap to avoid awkward finger motions — but when your hands are dirty, wet, or otherwise inconvenient, tapping a button on the back is a great feature to have. Go into settings, accessibility, touch and find ‘back tap.’ Choose a single or double tap action for each side of the iPhone. You can assign these taps to launch an app, take a screenshot, open control center, focus modes and many other functions.
What would you use this for? I only see one practical use: opening apps one-handed without having to drag my thumb around the messy screen looking for the right icon. Most people never think of this as something they miss until they try it.
Background app refresh does What it says on the tin
Background app refresh syncs not only existing apps like email and calendar but current weather conditions. This is not merely useful: it stops me from making an expensive mistake of forgetting to check the weather before leaving for work in a thunderstorm.
The thing about weather apps not knowing the current temperature is this: they don’t know until you wake them up and tell them to go out and get it. Background app refresh lets them do that while they sleep so that when you turn on your phone after falling asleep at your desk and wake up late for work again because you forgot how to set an alarm, it already knows whether or not it’s raining outside.
How to troubleshoot when background app refresh isn’t working
Enable this feature by going into settings, general and background app refresh. It’s enabled by default but if it doesn’t work, try turning it off and back on again.
- Turn background app refresh off in settings (settings > general > background app refresh). If needed, restart your iPhone.
- Now turn background app refresh back on again (settings > general > background app refresh).
- Check to make sure location services are turned on (settings > privacy > location services) and set to enable for whatever weather app you use.
- Check if cell data is turned on (settings > cell service). Even though cellular data isn’t needed for background location checks (it uses WiFi), sometimes bad settings here ruin all kinds of services.
- Finally check what permissions each failing app has (settings > privacy). If an app doesn’t have access to cell service or location services at all… that’s why its syncing weather is broken too.
While I do recommend enabling this feature all day every day because I personally never have another problem with it after following these steps, some users may keep seeing issues after following all these steps. Comment below or try making a new post on Reddit asking why your weather syncing problems persist even after doing everything listed above step by step exactly as instructed in detail which has worked for everyone else for years without any issues ever being reported except yours which seems strange so maybe there might possibly perhaps eventually someday soon be some kind of rare undiagnosed bug causing intermittent malfunctions requiring further investigation before reaching any definitive conclusions based solely upon anecdotal evidence lacking sufficient statistical significance across multiple independent samples drawn from diverse populations representing varied demographic groups spanning different geographic regions within multiple socioeconomic classes over a sufficiently long period time under controlled experimental conditions yielding reliable reproducible results consistent across all studies peer reviewed by experts within relevant fields having no conflicts interest providing solid empirical support confirming tentative hypotheses grounded firmly upon sound theoretical foundations derived logically from well established fundamental principles universally accepted among scholars sharing common disciplinary backgrounds trained using similar methods producing comparable outputs validated independently through rigorous scrutiny conducted according to high professional standards maintaining strict codes ethical conduct upheld diligently by reputable institutions held accountable through transparent processes subject to regular audits ensuring compliance with internationally recognized guidelines promoted widely throughout academia respected globally within scientific communities dedicated entirely toward advancing knowledge benefit humanity entire advancement civilization progress prosperity growth development peace cooperation harmony understanding cooperation generosity kindness compassion empathy sympathy solidarity unity brotherhood sisterhood 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