How to stop turning on your iPhone flashlight by accident
“I feel like people are silently judging me. As in, I don’t know how to use my phone. But I’m in tech! I know how to use technology! I’m an early adopter,” says Wilson, who is 47. “So this is obviously a design issue by Apple.”
Wilson is not alone. We’ve heard from dozens of readers about their flashlight issues, and many have more Twitter usersonly 22.
The flashlight button has been on the iPhone lock screen for a number of years. It sits on the opposite side of an almost identical button that turns on the camera and, with a little light pressure, turns on the light. Turning on the flashlight can drain a phone’s battery, flash someone in the eye, or just be embarrassing. (To jump to our tips on how to make it happen less, scroll down.)
Apple declined to comment on the matter.
To find out why this was happening, I asked people who were struggling with the issue to demonstrate how to pick up and put down their phone. People who don’t have flashlight problems were careful not to touch the glass and gently held their smartphone by the edges like a CD. iPhone owners who turned on their lights tended to grip the phone as if it weren’t a giant touch-sensitive glass panel enclosing the front and back of the device between their fingers.
People of all ages seem to struggle with this problem. Tori Daniels, 25, says they’ve been using the flashlight for years, most recently when they entered a pitch-black room and found it lit by her back pocket. Daniels says it’s more of an issue with Apple’s button placement than user error.
“I think it’s a comparable level to the fly-is-down thing. Actually not embarrassing. It’s more like, “Oh, shoot. How long has this been happening?’ ‘ says Daniels.
Drew Turner, 40, doesn’t think people judge him when the lights are on, but it still hurts when they say something. He has his cell phone in his back pocket, flashlight unconsciously trained on it for all to see.
“I think I think it’s an issue of mine because it doesn’t seem to happen to everyone, but I don’t know what I’m doing differently,” Turner says.
Accidentally doing things on cell phones has a long history stretching back to butt dialing. Accidentally calling someone doesn’t happen as often since lock screens became common, but now we trigger other things on our smartphones.
Divya Goel, 25, says turning on the flashlight is a common problem in her circle of friends. But the flashlight doesn’t bother her as much as the camera, which once recorded an entire 10-minute conversation from her pocket. “I’m a little worried about the accidental camera thing,” she says.
Another common accidental iPhone issue is triggering SOS and calling 911, which can happen from long-pressing and holding the side button.
But it’s the flashlight that seems to be the most common problem, perhaps because the result is the easiest to see.
Many people find the fickle button so frustrating that they have found their own ways to turn off the light. Some bypass the screen altogether and use Siri to turn off the lights. (Try “Hey, Siri, turn off the flashlight.”)
Michael Wong, a 29-year-old VR startup founder, turns on the camera to quickly turn off the light.
“I just swipe right a bit and the flashlight turns off. It’s a lot easier to swipe slightly to the right than to long-press the flashlight button,” says Wong.
Tricks to turn on your flashlight less
Try these tricks one by one to see if they help with your problem. You can also check out my quick video version.
- Make it harder to press: Go to Settings → Accessibility → Touch → Haptic Touch. Set the touch duration to Slow.
- Disable Tap To Wake: Go to Settings → Accessibility → Touch. Disable the Tap to Wake setting.
- Disable lift to wake: Go to Settings → Display & Brightness. Disable the raise to wake setting.
- Think differently: Always grip your phone by the sides and assume the screen is always on.
- Get a folio iPhone case: These cases contain hard covers that fold over the screen, giving it one more step to access.
Chris Velazco contributed to this report.