Yes, it sounds like magic, but in iOS 14 Apple uses the magic of machine learning and internal inertial sensors to detect a triple tap (or double-tap) on the back of the iPhone and allow you to associate an action to it.
I use it to interact with my Tesla by associating the triple-tap with shortcuts that my Stats for Tesla app provides (more on this at the end of this article).
Here is how to enable this feature:
1. Launch the Settings app and select Accessibility and then tap on “Touch”
2. In the next screen, tap on “Back Tap”
3. In the following screen, select either “Double Tap” or “Triple Tap”. I choose “Triple Tap” because it the false alarm rate is lower.
4. Now, select any of the shortcuts that are listed for you. If you don’t see the shortcut that you want, you can use the Shortcuts app (by Apple) to create one. In the example show below, I use a shortcut that the Stats app for Tesla provides. In particular, I assigned the action to a shortcut that gets the range of my Tesla. You can assign it to things like opening the frunk/trunk, making the car cooler/warmer by turning on the climate and setting it to your desired temperate, etc. Be ware that this back-tapping may trigger by mistake if you accidentally triple-tap. In order to avoid accidental triggering, you can configure your shortcut to ask for confirmation.
This is what I get when I triple-tap on the back of my iPhone:
To force, iOS to ask for confirmation when the shortcut is triggered, set this switch in the Shortcuts app for your desired shortcut:
Here is another example where I use the triple-tap action to open the charge port:
Link Back-tapping to Several Actions
You may discover that back-tapping sometimes triggers when you did not intend to (aka false alarm). Also, it would be nice to be given an option to select from a list of several commands. Both of these goals can be accomplished very easily.
Let’s create a shortcut that presents the user a list of actions using the Scripting option in the Shortcuts app. The following screenshots show the process of adding one of these:
Alternatively,you can just download this simple shortcut script and modify it so that it includes shortcuts that you want: https://www.icloud.com/shortcuts/3e87dd1f9b3f4dad90e482901f65d5f3
The end-result is something like this: