One of the upgrades with iOS 16 that’s a bit under the radar is the ability to use haptic feedback with the native keyboard. Here’s how to turn on the iPhone haptic keyboard and why it’s preferable to third-party keyboards.
While we’ve seen third-party keyboards like Google’s Gboard offer haptic feedback for a while, many people prefer to stick with the native iOS keyboard. One of the big reasons is privacy as third-party keyboards often ask for access to track all of your keyboard input.
Fortunately, Apple has made it possible for users to enable vibrations on the native stock iOS keyboard for each tap, providing a physical confirmation for users as they type.
Apple says these vibrations help serve as a “confirmation” as a user types. However, haptic keyboard feedback is turned off by default. Therefore, one has to explicitly turn on haptic keyboard feedback in iOS 16
Here’s how to turn keyboard vibration on or off on iPhone running iOS 16.
How to turn on keyboard vibration on iPhone in iOS 16
- Running iOS 16 on your iPhone, open the Settings app
- Tap Sounds & Haptics
- Near the bottom, choose Keyboard Feedback
- Tap the toggle next to Haptic to start using the iPhone haptic keyboard
Once the feature is enabled, you can open another app or place your cursor in a text field, and start typing. With every tap of the screen, your iPhone will slightly vibrate, providing confirmation that the key was actually pressed.
This feature will make your keyboard vibrate on iPhone 11, iPhone 12, iPhone 13, and other iOS 16 compatible devices.
After turning on the haptic keyboard, you can also turn off the sound effect for keyboard feedback. As you’d hope, unlike the sound keyboard feedback, haptic keyboard feedback works when your iPhone is set to ring or silent.
You might notice more toggles for “Haptics” at the bottom of the main Sounds & Haptics settings page to “Play Haptics in Ring Mode,” “Play Haptics in Silent Mode,” and more. But these won’t disable or enable the iPhone haptic keyboard setting that you’ve just turned on.
Why is my iPhone not vibrating when I type?
The vibration is enabled for the iOS 16 keyboard irrespective of whether the device is in silent mode or not. However, if you have completely disabled vibration on your iPhone then keyboard haptics won’t work either.
To check this, navigate to Settings > Accessibility > Touch and make sure the toggle switch next to ‘Vibration‘ is turned on.
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