I’ve had my iPhone 12 Pro Max for a couple of months now – and have gotten familiar with the enhancements that Apple made to the camera system and software on this new phone – (it does seem a bit odd to call it a phone when I’m talking about here is really mostly using it as a camera!).
One of the features I’m using that’s new in iOS 14 is the ability to quickly open one of the camera apps on my iPhone. I tend to use one of three different camera apps when I’m shooting: 1) the built-in Camera app, 2) the Lightroom app, or 3) the Halide app. Each of these camera apps has features that I like to use – and I’ll choose which one based upon the setting when I’m taking the photo.
In iOS 14, it’s possible to quickly open any of those apps so that you can avoid missing a good shot. The Camera app can be opened quickly using the button on the lower right of iPhone’s Lock Screen. in iOS 14, there is a new accessibility feature that you can use to quickly open either Lightroom or Halide by tapping on the back of the phone. Here’s how to set this up.
Back Tap
In the Accessibility settings, you can enable a Touch setting called Back Tap. This setting allows you to setup two separate actions that will be invoked when you tap on the back of the phone – one for a double tap and another for a triple tap.
On my iPhone, I’ve setup Double Tap to use the shortcut Open Lightroom. This opens the Lightroom application – and if you’ve last used the camera in the Lightroom app, then it will reopen directly into the Lightroom camera. I setup this shortcut using the Open App shortcut with it set to open the Lightroom app.
I’ve setup Triple Tap to use the shortcut Backtap Halide. I setup this shortcut using the Shortcuts app. As with the Lightroom shortcut, I’ve setup another shortcut names Backtap Halide which simply opens the Halide app. When opened, it opens in camera mode.
Here are the two very simple shortcuts I created:
Give this setup a try and see if you like using these shortcuts to make your photography faster and easier to access on your iPhone.