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

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

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.

This feature is called reachability. David Woodbridge did a pod cast on it.

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

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!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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!

Thanks for your sharing. I finally figure out this!

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.

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

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!

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.

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.

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