Warning about Direct Touch before you update to iOS 16

By Matt92Machine, 12 September, 2022

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Direct touch is still broken in apps. If you use an app like BitLife or DirecTV, direct touch is buggy and still doesn't work properly. This was an issue from the beta, and still is an issue on the public full release. I am using an iPhone 13. I don't think everyone is experiencing this, but I sure am and it was never fixed. Just letting you all know. If you don't use any apps where you have to turn on direct touch, then you're good to go.

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Comments

By Keith on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

Came across this post about 10 minutes too late. MBraille is affected by this, at least on my IPhone 10 R. I very rarely update on the first day, but did today. Very much regretting the choice, as MBraille is a pretty big productivity booster for me.

By Daniel Angus M… on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

hello all,

I don't know why a subject of 'warning' is needed here. this does not affect everybody: direct touch works for me, and that is as of iOS 16 Developer beta 1. yeah, it affects some, and you point that out, but posting the subject you did is misleading, as most people don't use direct touch anyway. as for MBraille, it's a waist of money, braille screen input is built-in, and just as good. I have an iPhone SE, Second Generation for reference, 256 GB, Product Red. this is most likely model specific.

By Matt92Machine on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

I don't think it's a misleading subject. If you experience the bug, it's a major issue. Apps that require direct touch are near unusable. I put in my post the phone I have, and that everyone might not have the same bug. I'm not misleading anyone.

By Panais on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

Your subject is not misleading in the least. In fact I will not update because of your post, as I don’t want to find out if my device will be affected from the direct Touch issue or not.
Thanks a lot for the warning.

By otrlibrary on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

With direct-touch so badly broken it of course broke Blindfold games. What I didn't expect was that once you tried to use it nothing else worked well anywhere else. None of the buttons under settings worked until I did a full shutdown and restart. Also the typing keyboard refused to appear when I tried to turn off "find my iphone". It indicated I could type but no keyboard appeared. I had to use a bluetooth keyboard instead. Touch screen on my 12pro is sluggish from power on and seems to get worse over time. I'm trying to revert to IOS 15.7 as I write this. I have never seen so many problems with a new IOS and I go back to the days of the original iPad and iPhone 4s.
Adding to earlier post the final blow was when I found IOS 16.0 direct-touch or not also broke Heytel. When you enter Heytel it starts recording a message to the last person you received one from When you exit the app it then sends what it recorded. I use the app constantly and have for probably 10 years. I can't remember when it was released but it is my main link to my partner and family. It became completely unusable. Word of warning, do your back-up before you upgrade! I usual do but forgot. End result, complete wipe of phone with loss of everything. Had to download the ipw for IOS 15.6.1 and start from scratch.

By Matt92Machine on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

I hadn’t tried any blindfold games on iOS 16, but I experience the same behavior as you do with the direct touch. Once you activate it, it breaks everything. Double tapping on things with voiceover no longer works and the only way to fix it is to restart the phone. I’ve also experienced it automatically turning edit mode on the Home Screen, so when you click on something, it asks if you want to delete it.

By Christel john on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

I’m not opening any direct touch apps until this bug is fixed

By Clare Page on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

Hi! I installed IOS 15 on my iPhone SE 2020 yesterday afternoon. After reading this thread today, I tested two games which use Direct Touch, Blindfold Tile Puzzle and FEER, and both are working properly, as they did for me in IOS 15. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones, but I'm sorry to hear that others have not been able to use apps which need Direct Touch since they updated their i-devices.

By Jo Billard on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

I haven't tried any of the Blindfold games yet so can't speak for those. Maybe I'm also one of the lucky ones, but I sure hope they fix this ASAP.

By Igna Triay on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

Direct touch is working for me. Does anyone know what is causing the bug?

By Keith on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

I'd be curious to know which devices people are using that have direct touch working? On my 10 R I'm having no luck. If there was someone with the same phone having success I may try things like resetting to factory settings. Just don't want to go through the hassle if it's unlikely to fix the problem.

By Jo Billard on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

I sure hope you won't have to reset your phone.

By Matt92Machine on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

A couple of people in here have said that they have the iPhone SE and it works fine on there. Also, I know iOS and iPad OS aren’t the same, but direct touch works fine on my iPad 9 on iPad OS 16 beta. Maybe it’s working on devices with a home button.

By Igna Triay on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

I have a iphone 12 and its working fine. Could the bug be caused by something like the app switcher bug, that invert colors triggers it?

By Keith on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

My app switcher is working fine. Have never used invert colors. But I do have poorly performing direct touch, and the strange behavior with voiceover not being able to activate things in the settings app and editing the home screen for no reason after launching apps with direct touch.

By Daniel Angus M… on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

now that I think about it, the subject is not misleading at all. direct touch works fine for me, I have an iPhone SE, Second generation for reference. direct touch worked fine for me since iOS 16 developer beta 1.

By Moopie Curran on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

You can also go into a direct touch app, and use your rotor and turn off direct touch. Yes, that takes patience, but I feel more comfortable doing that than restarting my phone, and possibly losing speech. Because I keep my brightness at zero, and my screen curtain on, and sighted help wouldn't be able to help. So, pick your poison basically.

By Kirstan on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

I am using an SE 2020 and since I updated to IOS 16 I too, can not play Blindfold Solotaire. I spend a lot of time with this app and this is pretty bad. Is there some sort of fix for the Direct Touch problem?

By Matt92Machine on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

There is no fix that I'm aware of. I've tried everything. Everyone just needs to report it to apple and hopefully they fix it soon. It was an issue for me all throughout the beta, and I reported it a month ago.

By Igna Triay on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

Don't get me wrong, reporting this is crucial, but until we find out what's the cause behind direct touch not working, what is causing it ,to trigger... reporting it will only do so much without ideas as to what causes the problem. I mean, there has to be a reason why this is affecting some users, but not others; this is not random, there must be a specific configuration or something that is causing this behavior.

By Thomas Byskov … on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

Hi Daniel Angus MacDonald!

I am glad that braille screen input is working for you, but for others MBraille is a much better tool than just a keyboard.

I have used it for years, and where the productivity works is for me when composing longer texts in different languages and how fast I can edit and spellcheck my work. For me the braille screen input is by far slower than using MBraille and especially editing and spellchecking can get a little slow, at least for me.

I have seen this on different devices, and I have seen a message from the MBraille developer saying that the issue is in iOS itself. He linked to an article that explains this issue, and that big games are affected as well.

I guess we will see a fix from Apple very soon, since this issue is for a huge customer base.

By Matt92Machine on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

Direct Touch seems to be working for me now in the latest 16.0.2 update. Apple seems to have fixed the issue. Are any of you still having problems with it after the update?

By Keith on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

This is great news. MBraille seems to be functional again. I actually had to remove it from my dock in 16.0 because of the number of times I was opening it by reflex. Happy for this fix.

By Moopie Curran on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

Hi,
I have an iPhone SE 2020 as my gaming device for Bitlife, among other games that require direct touch. I'm still on iOS 15, is it safe to update? Quite frankly, I'm afraid to take the plunge, seeing how I play bitlife pretty much every night before going to sleep.

By Matt92Machine on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

BitLife is one of the apps I play, and it is now working fine. Since multiple people are now saying this issue is fixed, I’d say you’re safe to update.

By Lanie Carmelo on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

I tried a game yesterday, Blindfold Color Crush, and Direct Touch was still acting weird. I'm on the beta, so I'm guessing the fix hasn't made it here.

By Rob on Friday, September 23, 2022 - 23:24

Hi, after updating to iOS 16.0.2 on my iPhone 13, direct touch seems to be working fine now. It's great to be enjoying Blindfold Color Crush once again! Well done Apple for fixing this so quickly.

By sockhopsinger on Tuesday, May 23, 2023 - 23:24

Anyone still use MBraille for a third party keyboard? I love typing with it, but usually just open the app and type from within the app. However, tonight I thought I'd try and switch to MBraille in the messages app. It works fine for my first message, but after I dismiss the keyboard and send the message, if I tap to enable it again, all it says is "direct touch enabled". I am running the latest update of iOS. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Oh, I did find that turning Voiceover on and off fixed the problem, but only for the next message. Thanks for any help.