Stop Swiping: How to Add a Virtual Home Button to Your iPhone

Ever miss the good old-fashioned home button on an iPhone? Starting with the iPhone X, Apple ditched the physical button to make way for a borderless display. Without a home button, you are now dependent on gestures to navigate on the screen.

But if you don’t like swiping, all is not lost. You may not be able to bring back a physical home button (unless you buy the iPhone SE), but you can customize a virtual home button that moves around the screen and adapts to your needs. The trick lies in the AssistiveTouch feature on your iPhone. How to add a virtual home button to your Apple device.

Turn on AssistiveTouch

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AssistiveTouch is an accessibility feature that lets you create a virtual home button and then customize what a tap, double-tap, or long press does. Go to on your device Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Assistive Touch and turn that on AssistiveTouch Possibility.

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A white virtual home button will appear on the screen. If you want to change the position on the screen, press the button lightly and move it to another position. You can place it anywhere you like, at the top or bottom of your screen, or in the middle. The button automatically jumps to the right or left so as not to obstruct your view.

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You can change the opacity of your home button to make it lighter or darker. On the AssistiveTouch settings screen, tap Idle Opacity and drag the slider to make the button darker or lighter.

Set up custom actions

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Once you’ve decided on a location for the home button, you can refine how it works. By default, a single tap on the button brings up the AssistiveTouch menu. Similar to the back-tap feature, you can change this action and also set up an associated double-tap and long-press action.

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From the AssistiveTouch menu, tap Single tap, double tapor Long press Possibility. The next screen presents a variety of options divided into specific categories: System, Accessibility, Scroll Gestures, Dwell Controls, and Shortcuts. Select a specific function you want to assign to a button action, e.g. B. Home, Siri or Apple Pay.

Activate the “Open menu” command.

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Another option is to set the Open Menu command, which provides a customizable set of shortcuts to control your device, e.g. B. to use your iPhone with one hand. Open Settings > Accessibility > Touch > AssistiveTouchthen tap one of the custom actions and set it to open menu. Now when you tap the Home button, you’ll see a menu of commands for Notifications, Siri, Control Center, and more.

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When you type Deviceyou can now access a variety of controls such as B. Lock Screen, Rotate Screen, Volume Up, Volume Down and Mute. Tap the More icon to access even more controls like Multitasking, SOS, Restart, Apple Pay, Screenshot, and Shake.

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On the AssistiveTouch settings screen, tap the entry for Customize the top-level menu to change and add or remove symbols. By default, the menu shows six icons, but you can increase or decrease this number using the plus and minus buttons at the bottom. You can tap at any time Reset to default to return to the default number.

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If you increase the number of symbols to more than six, empty symbols will appear. You can assign any available action to the custom and blank icons by tapping on them and selecting an associated action. Note that your custom double-tap and long-press actions may have been reset due to customization of the top-level menu.

Use predefined and custom gestures

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With your virtual home button, you can access predefined gestures and create your own custom gestures. For example, if you’re having trouble with the two-finger pinch-to-zoom gesture, go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > AssistiveTouch and add a custom or blank icon. Tap on it and then select prize Action.

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Now you can tap and select your virtual button prize Action. An icon with two circles connected by a line appears on the screen. Position this icon anywhere on the screen by dragging the line. You can then activate the zoom gesture by simply dragging one of the circles to the top-right or top-left corner of the screen.

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Create your own custom gesture by opening it Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Assistive Touch and knock Create new gesture under the Custom Gestures Headline. Use the screen to record a series of taps and/or swipes to create a custom gesture. When you’re done, tap Play to see the recording of your gesture.

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If you like what you did, tap Save on computer and then give the gesture a name. Open Settings > Accessibility > Touch > AssistiveTouch > Customize top-level menu and add a custom or blank icon to the menu. Choose custom Select your action from the action list Custom Gestures Section.

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Now open a screen with text, such as a web page in Safari. Tap your virtual button and select the custom gesture icon. Tap anywhere on the screen where you want to perform the custom gesture and the action will be triggered.