With iOS 17, iPadOS 17, and macOS Sonoma, Apple added an interesting hand gesture reactions feature to make your video calls more fun and expressive. When you’re on a video call on FaceTime or any other third-party video calling app, you can use hand gestures to fill the camera frame with unique animations and 3D effects that look great. While it’s a nice addition, sometimes you can activate them accidentally, leading to awkward moments during important video calls like business meetings, virtual interviews, or therapy sessions. To escape such embarrassment, you must know how to turn off gesture-based reactions on an iPhone. Without further ado, let’s get started.
Disable iOS 17 FaceTime Reactions on iPhone
Note:
This feature is currently available in iOS 17.4 Developer Beta 2. Apple is expected to release this feature in the iOS 17.4 stable update, which is scheduled for release in March.
When you’re on a FaceTime video call on an iPhone or iPad, you can easily activate on-screen effects like fireworks, hearts, confetti, balloons, and more by floating the screen above the window. Without a doubt, FaceTime reaction effects make video calls with family and friends more fun. However, there may be certain situations where you want to make sure you don’t accidentally trigger any reactions. For example, you never want to flood the screen with hearts during your official meetings.
Since iOS 17’s hand gesture reactions feature is enabled by default, it’s easy to activate gestures accidentally. Fortunately, you can manually turn off FaceTime reactions on your iPhone. Simply follow the steps below:
- Open the FaceTime app on your iPhone.
- Swipe down from the top right corner of the screen to open the Control center.
- From the top left corner, tap Effects.
- Now, touch the Reactions so that it is no longer selected.
- Finally, swipe up to return to the FaceTime app.
Disable hand gesture reactions in third-party apps on iPhone
Interestingly, Apple is releasing a new API with iOS 17.4 that allows third-party video conferencing apps to disable gesture-based reactions by default in their apps. It means that hand gesture reactions will not be enabled by default. It would be the user’s choice whether to enable the feature or not. We will update this article when third-party video conferencing apps like Zoom and WhatsApp implement the feature to disable reactions.
