Unlock iPhone Without Pressing the Home Button in iOS 10

iOS 10 changes the unlock process for Touch ID users ever so slightly and many people prefer the old way. Up until now, to unlock your iPhone or iPad with Touch ID, all you needed to do was rest your finger on the Home button. iOS 10 requires that you actually press the Home button first.

Apple says this is to give you a chance to see your Lock screen notifications since Touch ID has become so fast. But if that’s not a priority to you and you’d rather just get to the Home screen as quickly as possible, you can disable the Home button press thanks to a new setting in one of the betas.

Unlock Device By Resting Finger on Touch ID

Sometimes new just isn’t better. So to restore the pre-iOS 10 way of unlocking an iPhone or iPad via Touch ID, we’ll need to go into Settings.

From there, scroll to tap General.

Next tap Accessibility.

Now scroll a bit and find the Home Button setting. It’s buried a bit in this panel, but located right above the Reachability switch.

At the bottom of the Home button setting, notice the new toggle for Rest Finger to Open. Turn this on. Henceforth, you’ll be able to unlock your device by just resting your finger on the Home button (only for devices with Touch ID.)

If you ever change your mind, you can always come back here and turn this setting off. That would then require pressing the Home button to unlock, the default for iOS 10.

All set. Continue reading on for information about other options pertaining to the Home button.

AssistiveTouch and Other Options

In that Home button setting, you’ll notice that you can also adjust click speed if you like. This doesn’t pertain to the amount of time your device will take to unlock, but rather how sensitive the button is to your double or triple clicks for other actions. Double clicking opens the multitasking view and triple clicking brings up accessibility options.

You can’t make it any faster, but you can choose Slow or Slowest if you find you don’t click the Home button fast enough to trigger those features.

iOS actually has an accessibility feature that enables you to avoid pressing the Home button altogether. It’s called AssistiveTouch and it’s fantastic if you have a hard time pressing the Home button or if it’s simply broken.

To enable this, head back to the Accessibility settings and tap AssitiveTouch. Turn it on at the top. You’ll see a dark icon appear toward the corner of your screen. This is your new AssistiveTouch control menu.

Tap it to view quick links to Notification Center, Control Center, Siri, Device, Home and Custom. Tapping Home acts as if you pressed the Home button and as such takes you to the Home screen. Meanwhile, options for the device include volume, mute, rotation, gestures and more.

ALSO READ: 6 New Ways to Use 3D Touch on iOS 10