While the screen on a smartphone is smaller than the one on a laptop or tablet, it is still large enough to read comfortable or watch movies or TV shows.
But even with a comparably small screen, it can still be difficult to use with one hand for many people.
If you are someone that has trouble reaching the top of the screen while holding your iPhone in one screen, then you may have resorted to using both hands for certain actions.
But there is actually a setting on the iPhone called “Reachability” that can make the device much simpler to use with one hand.
You can enable Reachability on an iPhone 13 by going to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > and turning on Reachability.
Once the setting is enabled on your iPhone 13 you can swipe down on the bottom edge of the screen, which will pull down the top of the screen so that it can be reached while holding the phone in one hand.
If this is something that you think could be useful, then keep reading below to learn more about enabling and using it, as well as some of the other options that you will see on the same menu.
How to Turn on the Reachability Option on an iPhone 13
- Open Settings.
- Choose Accessibility.
- Select Touch.
- Turn on Reachability.
Our guide continues below with additional information on enabling or disabling Reachability on an Apple smartphone in iOS 15.
How to Enable the iOS 15 Reachability Setting (Guide with Pictures)
The steps in this article were performed on an iPhone 13 in the iOS 15.4.1 operating system. This will also work on most other iPhone models in most other versions of iOS.
However, if you have an iPhone that has a Home button then you will access reachability by tapping the Home button twice instead of swiping down on the bottom edge of the screen.
Step 1: Open the Settings menu on your iPhone.
Step 2: Scroll down and select the Accessibility menu.
Step 3: Choose Touch from the list of options.
Step 4: Tap the button to the right of Reachability to enable it.
Now you can swipe down on the bottom edge of the iPhone screen to pull the top part of it down.
Our tutorial continues with additional discussion about the iPhone’s reachability feature as well as the other options found on the Touch Accessibility menu.
More Information on How to Use Reachability on an iPhone
When you turn on the Reachability feature on your iPhone you are going to be able to make it easier to use the device when you are holding it with one hand.
You can activate Reachability on an iPhone 13 by swiping down on the bottom edge of the screen to lower the top part of the screen.
I usually swipe down on the bottom part of the dock (the gray rectangle at the bottom of the screen that has apps that remain on the screen as you swipe between Home screens.) When you are done with the reachability mode you can tap the up arrow at the top of the screen to return to the normal view.
If you discover that reachability isn’t as useful as you had hoped, or that you are accidentally activating it a lot, you can always go back to Accessibility > Touch and turn it back off.
Some of the other options on the Touch menu include:
- AssistiveTouch – adds a transparent circle to the screen that you can customize to perform certain actions.
- Haptic Touch – allows you to tap and hold on the screen to bring up different commands and menus.
- Touch Accommodations – make changes to the way that your iPhone responds to different kinds of touches
- Tap to Wake – You can wake up the screen by simply tapping on it.
- Shake to Undo – lets you control whether or not shaking your iPhone will cause the last action to be undone.
- Vibration – this allows you to completely turn off all vibrations on your iPhone.
- Call Audio Routing – lets you choose where the audio is output when you are on a phone call.
- Back Tap – you can customize this setting so that when you tap on the back of your iPhone it causes certain actions to occur.
Matthew Burleigh has been writing technology how-to articles and tutorials for over a decade. He has extensive experience in information technology both in small business and as a consultant.
His articles have appeared on dozens of websites and been read millions of times.
He covers many different topics concerning technology, but focuses primarily on smartphones, consumer software, and consumer electronics.
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