The odds of ever replacing Siri as the default voice assistant on your iPhone are basically nil. But there is a way to quickly access Bing Chat on iPhone that you probably haven’t thought of.
Like Siri, you can trigger this from anywhere on the iPhone, no matter what app you’re in. It doesn’t go straight into Bing chat though, there will be an extra tap, but I can’t think of a faster way.
It requires a little setup, and it also involves using the Shortcuts app. But once you’re done, you can open Bing just by tapping the back of your iPhone.
before you start
To do this, there are a few prerequisites that you need to be aware of before you begin. The first is that you can only use the Back Tap on iPhones from the iPhone 8 upwards.
The other thing, as mentioned, is that you also need to install the Shortcuts app. If you don’t currently have it, get it for free from the App Store (opens in new tab).
And of course the latest version of the Bing app for iOS (opens in new tab).
Here’s how to quickly access Bing Chat from anywhere on your iPhone
The process essentially consists of two steps. The first is to create a shortcut to launch the Bing app. The second is to assign that shortcut to be triggered by the Back Tap feature.
(Image credit: Windows Central)
To create the shortcut:
1. Open the Shortcuts app on your iPhone.
2. Tap the + button to create a new shortcut.
3. Tap Add Action.
4. Search for Open App and tap on it.
5. Tap on the blue text “App”.
6. Select Bing from the list.
7. Tap Done.
It’s also probably worth giving it an easy-to-remember name, especially if you have other shortcuts in game. For example, I simply named mine “Open Bing”.
The shortcut is now created, so all we have to do is tell the iPhone to run that shortcut when you tap the back of the phone.
(Image credit: Windows Central)
1. Open Settings.
2. Navigate to Accessibility > Touch.
3. Find and open the Back Tap settings at the very bottom.
4. Tap either Double Tap or Triple Tap depending on how many times you want to trigger the action.
5. Scroll down and find and select the shortcut you created above.
That’s all there is to it. Now, from anywhere on your iPhone (assuming it’s unlocked), just double- or triple-tap, depending on what you’ve chosen, and the Bing app will open for you. From there, it’s a single additional tap to launch Bing Chat.
The shortcut can also be run from the lock screen, but you’ll need to unlock your iPhone to use the app. But it’s still pretty nice that you can do this and launch directly into Bing.
Proper shortcuts support would be excellent
In theory, if Microsoft were to build in proper, full support for shortcuts to the Bing app, we could have a trigger to launch directly into Bing chat instead of having to tap the button. Or start another function of the app, e.g. B. Weather or Microsoft Rewards.
Right now we’re limited by lacking that support, so we can only use the built-in Open App action to trigger what we want. But with the right shortcuts support, you could create more complex actions and even trigger them with Siri.
