Finally figured out what causes the screen to slide down on iPhone 6

By Cliff, 5 November, 2014

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

Ever since getting my iPhone 6 a month ago, I have incountered a weird feature every once a while, but I haven't been able to reproduce it until yesterday.
I'm posting this because I have earlier been looking around on applevis to see if this has been described, but to my knowledge it hasn't been mentioned. I'm sorry if this already has been discussed.
So what happens is that I will from time to time hear a small sound-effect and the icons of the screen on my iPhone 6 has suddenly slided down, so that the upper line of icons now is somewhere on the middle of the screen, and the corresponding lines of icons below has slided equally down. I also can comfirm this by sight, since the little vision I got left, let's me see that the upper half of the screen now is dark.
After some seconds, I'll then hear the sound again and everything's back to normal.
I've thought from the beginning that this is a new feature so that one can easier reach the icons that are highest up on the screen with a thumb, without having to change position of the phone in your hand, and that's still what I believe this is. But as mentioned above, I haven't been able to reproduce this until now.
So what you do is simply to double-tap the home-button. Not double-press it like the gesture for opening the app-switcher, but a light tap, like double-tapping the screen. I guess this also works on iPhone 6+ and perhaps on 5S, since it probably is the touch ID sensor that reads this gesture.
The screen will slide down and you can reach the highest icons much easier, supposedly with your thumb. When done, you can either double-tap the home-button again to make it slide back, or just wait for a few seconds and it will slide back on it's own.
Hope this might help someone, because it sure made me frustrated to not figure out what caused this to happen every once in a while. And again, if this is old news, I appologize for double-posting this. :)
All the best and take care :)

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Comments

By MarkSarch on Thursday, November 27, 2014 - 00:23

Reachability
Apple largest screen iPhone 6 and 6 plus One such change is the introduction of something Apple calls “Reachability.” Reachability
is a software option that lets users temporarily move the iPhone 6 user interface
down towards the bottom of the screen, so that those with smaller hands or those
using the phone single-handed can more easily reach the desired UI element.
Reachability is enabled by default, but if for some reason it’s not, or if you want
to disable it, you can find its toggle switch in
Settings > General > Accessibility
Once Reachability is enabled, you can use it at any time by double-tapping the home
button. Now, a lot of folks misinterpret that instruction so we’ll go over it again.
To use Reachability, you want to double-
tap on the home button, not double-click
. To distinguish between the two actions, a “click” is actually pressing the button,
and double-clicking the iPhone 6 home button will take you to the app switcher.
Also David Woodbridgemade a short demonstration how to use it visit the next link below.

http://www.applevis.com/sites/default/files/podcasts/AppleVisPodcast601.mp3

By Harp on Thursday, November 27, 2014 - 00:23

Hi Cliff, the feature to which you refer is a new feature that came with IOS8 called Reachability. Because of the phone's increase in size, and indeed the plus model which is even larger again Apple decided that it was necessary to include a new feature that made the upper icons more accessible when using the device with just the thumb, and so was born reachability.

Somewhat foolishly, even though I knew that reachability was coming with IOS8 on the new devices it still through me for a couple of days because I kept hearing a seemingly randomly generated whooshing sound and couldn't for the life of me figure out what I was doing to cause it, or what it meant.

The good news, if it is a feature that you are finding an irritant is that it can easily be disabled by going to "Settings, General, Accessibility". The last option under the "Interaction" heading is the on/off toggle for reachability.

Dan.

By Cliff on Thursday, November 27, 2014 - 00:23

Thank you, guys! I just wasn't aware of how one actually did this, so it just kept happening to me for no good reason it seemed.
I'm happy that I finally figured this one out, and it is good to know that it may be turned off as well.
But it might just as well turn out to be a handy feature once I get used to it! :)
Thanks again

By Neo on Thursday, November 27, 2014 - 00:23

Thanks, I have been wondering what that swooshing sound was. It was starting to get v annoying

By Brooke on Thursday, November 27, 2014 - 00:23

I'll be getting my iPhone 6 in about a week, so I'm glad I read this ahead of time. If I hadn't, I can imagine plenty of confusion on my end!

By Clare Page on Thursday, November 27, 2014 - 00:23

Hi! Every so often, when I've wanted to open the app switcher, I've heard that swooshing sound instead of hearing VoiceOver say "ap switcher", but I didn't register that this was Reachability starting to work, although I should have realised what was going on, as sometimes it seemed that the top row of icons on the home screen of my iPhone 6 suddenly didn't seem so near the top as I expected. So now I assume that, every time I heard the swooshing sound, I'd double-tapped the Home button instead of pressing it twice, activating Reachability instead of the app switcher. Many thanks to everyone who has explained this feature here. I will probably turn Reachability off in Settings now: even though I have small hands, I hold my iPhone 6 in one hand while operating it with the other, and I may run the risk of getting confused about the position of icons on the home screen if they keep moving when I accidentally activate Reachability.

By Dave on Monday, July 27, 2015 - 00:23

Thanks! This was the first page I could find answering what this was!

The feature allows users to easily reach the top row of apps on the home screen or anything else that’s placed toward the top of the display. It’s called Reachability, but not everyone is a huge fan of it. Once I knew what it was, I wanted to disable it because it just comes up by accident.

Here’s how to disable it:

Open up the Settings app.
Tap on Accessibility.
Scroll all the way down to the bottom and you’ll see a settings for Reachability.
Turn the toggle switch next to Reachability to Off.

By Kevan on Monday, July 27, 2015 - 00:23

This has been driving me crazy just about ever since I got my iPhone 6, glad I found out what it was. :)

By Queen81 on Thursday, August 27, 2015 - 00:23

I couldn't figure out how to re resimulate the action or figure out prior how to use this feature to my benefit. Hey thanks! Other people were refeRring it to being something wrong with the programming... But that cleared it up.

By Sandrita1 on Friday, November 27, 2015 - 00:23

Thanks for the info. It worked and I had tried everything.

By Sandrita1 on Friday, November 27, 2015 - 00:23

I have been able to synch my iPad and iPad mini and iPhone 6 to my Bose but now it's not working with any of the devices. Help.

By The Tiki Lab on Friday, November 27, 2015 - 00:23

Been a member here for 5 minutes and this is one of the coolest things I've ever been told! Thanks for the FYI sir, ironically my fully sighted fiancé was having this happen and we were about to go spend 30 years at the Apple store to have a genius tell us the same thing in a much more condescending manner! You are officially the man!

By Cliff on Friday, November 27, 2015 - 00:23

Wow! Thanks! :)
You're welcome! And also welcome to AppleVis! That's what's so great with this site; you can suddenly stumble upon information you need that you almost didn't know you were looking for! :)
Take care an enjoy the site :)

By Fiona on Friday, November 27, 2015 - 00:23

Thanks for your sharing. I finally figure out this!

By Leela on Monday, June 27, 2016 - 00:23

When the feature first came out, I hadn't heard of it. Plus, I wasn't seeing any results. I just kept hearing that sound. At first, I thought my phone was being hacked because the sound was just going off randomly, and voiceover was jumping around. After a couple of days not doing anything about it, and with everything staying the same, I concluded it was a bug. Then, a while back, I was using my phone, and double tapped the home button by mistake. That time I realized that the phone slid down, and realized to my embarrassment that it was a new feature.

By AD929to624 on Friday, January 27, 2017 - 00:23

Even if this was old news your post was the only thing that gave me answers! Thank you for sharing Cliff

By kmg123 on Friday, January 27, 2017 - 00:23

I truly thought I was going crazy when this happened on my phone. I thought I would have to go the phone store or find a stranger with an iphone, etc. I was having a difficult time trying to describe the problem as well. You have saved me! My sincere thanks!

By Rusty on Monday, February 27, 2017 - 00:23

Thank you for the information

I have an iPhone6 and recently upgraded the OS. The shifting screen was driving me crazy; I have turned it off.

By Jason on Thursday, July 27, 2017 - 00:23

This feature has been annoying me so much because I didn't know what it was for so long. And now that I finally know I'm so relieved and needed to make an account so I could thank you for figuring out what this was.

By Rakhmilov on Wednesday, September 27, 2017 - 00:23

You can also slide your finger from top to bottom of the button. It will the same exact thing as dubble tap