How to Unlock Your iPhone with No Hands (And Why You Shouldn’t)

Sometimes it feels like the iPhone can do anything, even without using your hands. Thanks to Siri and other accessibility features, you can control many features on an iPhone without even touching it. Of course, that’s not always a good thing. Take the following trick, for instance. A TikToker shared a new way to unlock your iPhone without using your hands at all. Sure, that might sound cool at first, but you shouldn’t use this trick in your everyday life. Here’s why.

Recently, a TikTok user by the name of @hardresetinfo, shared a new video showing how they can unlock their iPhone without using their hands. How do they do it? In short, they use an Accessibility feature that lets you create voice commands. You can create custom commands that, when you say the name of the command, your iPhone will make the tapping gestures on your screen as if you were doing it. 

Here’s how hardreset.info did it:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone. 
2. Scroll down and go to Accessibility. 
3. Scroll down again and tap Voice Control. If you haven’t already, you might need to Set Up Voice control beforehand.
4. Tap on Customize Commands.
5. Select Create New Command.
6. Enter the phrase you want to use as your command. In the video, they used the phrase, “Please, unlock my phone.”
7. Tap on Action.
8. Select Run Custom Gesture.
9. Create the gesture. You’ll need to know where the passcode is located to tap the correct numbers in the same position. In the video, they painted the screen in the place where the buttons are. 
10. Tap Save in the top right corner of your screen. 

And that’s it. You can lock your iPhone, try to unlock it with your passcode, and just say, “please, unlock my phone.”

This Trick Is Great! Don’t Use It

To be fair, it’s a pretty interesting trick that not a lot of us knew about. With that said, you shouldn’t use this trick for a couple of reasons. 

First, this isn’t the best way to keep your iPhone safe. For starters, your iPhone might be able to be unlocked by someone else if they say, “unlock my phone,” and your iPhone thinks it’s you talking. 

Plus, if you use this trick in a public place, people will be able to see your passcode. Your iPhone will make the gestures as if someone is touching the screen, which means the passcode buttons will light up when your iPhone “touches” them. Someone can easily see your passcode, and it’ll be completely easy to access your iPhone and information.

The other big reason is a small feature called Face ID that you might have heard of already. This feature alone lets you unlock your iPhone without touching the screen. The video doesn’t show it, but you’ll still need to swipe up on your iPhone and avoid using Face ID to access the passcode keypad. Not only is it more time-consuming, but it’s pretty impractical to use on a daily basis. 

Sure, if you want to show off this trick to your friends or family, you can try it out, but overall it’s riskier than it is functional.

Even if you feel like you need to use this trick as an accessibility feature, there are probably faster and better solutions for you. Apple’s constantly improving its operating systems to make them easier for everyone to use, so there’s surely a better way for you to unlock your iPhone.