Finding Your Way Home in a (Home) Buttonless World: Using an iOS Device Without a Home Button the Ears Edition

In this episode, Scott Davert explores the different ways to access the Home Screen on iPhones without a Home Button. With the launch of the iPhone 16e, Apple has fully transitioned to a buttonless design, changing how users interact with their devices. For those accustomed to the tactile feedback of the Home Button, this shift may feel challenging. However, several alternative methods can replicate its functionality.

1. Using the Default Gesture:

To return to the Home Screen without a physical button:

1. Place a finger at the bottom center of the screen.
2. Quickly swipe upward until you feel a slight vibration or hear a "pop" sound.
3. Release your finger to navigate to the Home Screen.

Tip: Using the charging port as a reference point can help with finger placement. Adding a small tactile marker, such as a bump dot, on your case near the swipe area can also provide a reliable guide.

2. Customizing VoiceOver Gestures:

VoiceOver users can assign the Home function to a different gesture for easier navigation:

Assigning Home to a Two-Finger Swipe Right:

1. Open Settings > Accessibility > VoiceOver > Commands > Touch Gestures.
2. Choose a gesture, such as a two-finger swipe right.
3. Under the "System" section, select "Home".
4. If the gesture is already assigned, iOS will notify you. Confirm the reassignment by selecting "Assign".

Note: The two-finger swipe right is typically used for grouped navigation, so choose another gesture if this conflicts with your existing setup.

3. Enabling Back Tap:

Back Tap allows users to activate specific functions by tapping the back of their iPhone:

Setting Up Back Tap for Home Screen Access:

1. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap.
2. Toggle "Back Tap" on.
3. Choose "Triple Tap".
4. From the options, select "Home".

Observation: If you use a thick phone case, Back Tap may not work as effectively. Adjust your tapping technique or consider using a thinner case if needed.

4. Using the Action Button with Siri Shortcuts:

On certain iPhone models with an Action Button, you can program it to bring you to the Home Screen using a Siri Shortcut:

Configuring the Action Button for Home:

1. Download the shortcut, courtesy of AppleVis' very own AnonyMouse. on a compatible iPhone.
2. If the shortcut doesn’t run automatically, tap "Add Shortcut" to enable it.
3. Navigate to Settings > Action Button.
4. Select "Shortcut" from the menu.
5. Choose "Go to Home Screen" from the list of shortcuts.
6. Now, pressing and holding the Action Button will return you to the Home Screen.

Reminder: To maintain security, only download shortcuts from reputable sources.

By utilizing these methods, users can easily adjust to Apple's buttonless design, ensuring a smooth and intuitive experience on modern iPhones.

If you'd like to read this in a written guide, you can find it here: Finding Your Way Home in a (Home) Buttonless World: Using an iOS Device Without a Home Button

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated by Aiko, an AI-powered transcription app. It is not edited or formatted, and it may not accurately capture the speakers’ names, voices, or content.

Hey everybody, it's Scott Davert here.

Welcome you back to another AppleViz Podcast.

It's been quite a while since I've done one of these.

It's probably also been quite a while since most of you've heard that intro.

Thank you for that, Drew, by the way.

I thought to use that intro as it's reminiscent of the days when we all had home buttons.

Unfortunately, if you want to buy a new iPhone going forward, like many of us, you no longer will have a home button.

You still have a home, thankfully, whether that's your screen or hopefully where you live.

But it's kind of created some challenges for people in various parts of the community.

And I've seen this several times in my work capacity and had a little challenge with the gesture myself in the beginning.

So I can fully relate to it being an issue for some individuals.

Now, I have since gotten these gestures down and I can tell you from observing other people who struggled with it that it is indeed possible for a lot of people.

But the honest truth is that it isn't necessary if you don't want to learn that gesture.

If you want to give it a try, we have a podcast on the iPhone X when it came out.

Or did they?

Yeah, I guess they called it the 10.

Anyway, you did have at that time a podcast on AppleViz that goes into details about how to use that gesture.

So I won't go into great detail here, but it essentially involves lining up with the bottom edge of the screen.

You'll hear a pop sound.

Unfortunately, there's no haptic for that initial pop sound.

And then you swipe up and release.

And that should take you to your home screen.

And people have addressed this in various ways, for example, lining up with a specific edge or some people use the lightning or USB-C port on the bottom.

It really just depends on what works for them.

Some people I know and I've set up for individuals that have a case that covers their phone, they may want some sort of tactile marking on the case that they can follow to help them perform that gesture.

The other option, which I can't demonstrate or the recording will mess up, is using Siri.

But you have to make sure you say go to the home screen, because if you say something like go home, if you have a home address set up, it'll open maps and give you directions to go home.

And maybe that's what you want.

Word choice is important with Siri.

If Siri isn't your thing, no problem.

There are plenty of other ways I'm going to discuss those now.

Let's start with the voiceover way in which you can address this.

And this would be to assign the home gesture to something else.

For example, you may find it more difficult to perform the gesture I just described.

But you might find it easy, for example, to swipe left with two fingers or swipe down with four fingers or whatever the heck you want to make it.

You can do that.

And we're going to go through how to do that now.

So the first thing I need to do, of course, is go to voiceover settings and then commands.

So let me bring up voiceover settings here with my shortcut key combination.

And I'm going to find commands.

I'm going to swipe right one more time and go to touch gestures, button touch gestures and activate that one finger heading.

And here we have a list of all the gestures available in an order.

And you can browse if you're not sure what gesture you would like to use for this command.

For example, if I swipe right, we're on the heading for tap one finger.

You'll get to one finger.

You heard there dimmed and it is dimmed because you can't change that.

I'm going to use the two finger swipe left and I can go through all of these different options or I'm just going to swipe down to the two finger swipe heading.

Flick right one more time.

I don't use group navigation, so I don't really care about that.

So that's what I'm going to choose.

And now you have the ability to search for it.

So I'll go ahead and do that.

I press enter.

And now I'll flick right a couple times.

There it is.

You'll find it under the system heading.

The system heading isn't your first set of options, but it does show where it's actually located.

Flick right one more time.

There's home.

Double tap.

So you can cancel it and go through the process again, choosing another gesture.

That's the one I want.

I'll double tap on it and select assign.

Let's see if it works.

It does indeed work.

So that's one way you can do it.

The other option you have is to set up with backtap, and backtap is something that can be a little quirky sometimes.

Sometimes with some cases that are much thicker, it may not register a lot of the time.

But if you have a thinner case, it certainly can work.

I've been told that you can utilize one of the camera lenses to carry out the triple backtap, but I've not actually found that effective.

On my particular Otterbox case that I have, if I triple tap on the back near where the camera is, the case is a little less thick, I should say, and so that works about 99% of the time.

Sometimes it doesn't.

By the way, don't think if you tap harder, like on the bottom center of the phone, then it's going to work.

I've done the equivalent of smacking the bottom of my phone three times, like, and now it didn't work.

So it's not necessarily going to work if you slap your phone.

Didn't work that time, did it?

Anyway, so triple backtap is what I recommend.

You can certainly go with double if you want.

Let's go back into settings now and look at setting that up.

Settings.

One new item.

Settings.

And I'll just go back here to accessibility.

Commands.

Back button.

Touch commands.

Button.

Zoom.

Off.

Button.

There we go.

And now I'm going to find touch.

Enter search text.

Touch.

Button.

Select it.

Assistive touch.

Off.

Button.

And now I'm going to look for the word back.

It's quite a ways down the screen.

I have my braille display, so that's what I'm going to do.

Enter search text.

Backtap.

On. Button.

I'll select this.

Double tap.

None.

Button.

Nothing for double tap.

I'll flick right.

Triple tap.

Home.

Button.

There.

We already have it selected, but I'll go in here and show you that it is indeed there.

None.

And you can swipe through all these things or I'm going to quickly jump there.

Enter search text.

Selected.

Home.

Double tap and it's selected.

Mine already is, so I don't need to do that.

Now let me fairly lightly tap three times on the back of my phone right near the camera.

So that works as well.

You can also use a shortcut and just like the triple backtap option, the shortcut which will link to the action button if you have one is another way to go to the home screen.

I'm not going to go through how to set up a shortcut in the sense that I'm going to build one, but what I am going to do is show you the process of downloading the shortcut.

I'll use the guide that I created Friday evening as the example of it and how to set it up with the action button.

So, let me go to Safari.

Safari.

Safari.

Download the shortcut.

Courtesy of Apple.

This is very humanity mouse link.

Thomas, you make it on every one of our podcasts, I think, even when you're not actually here.

Anyway, all right, so I'm going to download this.

I'll double tap and voiceover didn't say it, but I see cancel on my braille display.

So now I can flick right.

Share button.

I can share it.

Go to home screen.

That's what it's called.

Share February 26th, 2025.

I guess that's when he uploaded it.

Go to home screen button.

Actions available.

That's what it is at shortcut button, but we're not going to look at that right now.

I am going to go right one more time to the add shortcut button.

I'll select that shortcuts at a shortcut.

Go home screen.

All right, so it added it.

We're done with this.

Which way do I want to go back to my home screen.

I have like 8 trillion ways I could do it now after this demonstration.

I'll, I'll hit space with H because I haven't done that one yet.

Oh, now I'm going to go to the settings app settings.

I'm going back to the main screen, the opening screen of settings ability.

Double tap press on the display accessibility Scott average Apple account iCloud plus and more button at least you know it's me and I'm using my own phone and what I'm looking for now is the action button and research text action button button.

I'll select that and again you know you can use your standard scrolling gestures or however you might want to do this on a touch screen selected settings back button.

Shortcut adjustable.

The first option we have is the adjustable category there are several categories here that you can explore on your own flick up or down to change the adjustable item and you can then flick right shortcut.

Open the number on your favorite shortcut.

And more time.

But that's what we currently have as the assigned Siri shortcut that's a shortcut to start a new chat with chat GPT.

I'll select this.

She grab her button.

Shortcuts text field flicking right brings us to the search shortcuts option.

I'm gonna do a fine here for home but you can certainly go ahead and do a search if you prefer.

That's what we want.

I will go ahead and select this.

Now go back to my phone and go home.

One more time I'll press the action button till it gives me a tactile click.

And there again we are at the home screen.

Thank you very much for listening and on behalf of the Apple this editorial team and the be my eyes family.

This is Scott Davert saying so long everybody.