iPhone 16 Pro, again: has anyone noticed that we can accidentally close apps from the app switcher if we're not paying attention?

Yes this is a problem i have talked to apple about this but if you could give them a call as well, and bring this up this would be great, from what I can tell is that the app switcher seems to be on the screen at random points when you navagate to something on the screen normally this is not within apps but on home screens or within folders.
The problem definitly startedback in IOS 18 and has prosisted ever since. not sure what or houw this can be fixed i wonder if it is something to do with the liquide glass that they are talking about for IOS 26? but anyway this i consider a major bug.

I've also noticed that it will close apps at random, even if I haven't used the app switcher. It also clicks on links I didn't want, particularly when I'm using the rotor and going through headings or links. How can a simple swipe turn into a double tap, I'd like to know? It's so random, I'm not sure if Apple could reproduce it.

I've noticed this too with my iPhone 16E. It is also much more sensitive with Braille Screen Input which I made a separate thread about, and it often results in me typing extra letters or deleting more than I wanted to delete. It's almost as though the screen is temporarily over-sensitive somehow.

This used to happen to me too, but I never see it anymore since finding a workaround.

After you slide up and hear the higher tone and feel the second haptic, touch the middle of your screen so that VoiceOver speaks the name of an app, then flick until you find the app you want to close. Since VO tends to have focus issues in the app switcher, you may want to wait a second to be sure focus is on the app you want. From there, you can three finger flick up to close the app.

It takes a couple extra seconds, but I don't even notice it anymore.

HTH

This device does have a home button but when I open the App Switcher, close the app and press the home button immediately to go to the home screen and tap a particular location on the screen once, the following happen:

• Focus jumps to the first item
• The single tap is treated as a double-tap, causing the first item or widget to be opened

Also, some apps occasionally disappear from the App Switcher even though I don't close the apps I use regularly.

This has been a bug for quite some time. I believe I used to encounter this on my iphone 13 Pro Max before I upgraded to the 16 Pro Max. Some of the work-arounds people have mentioned here already do work, but it is still annoying. VO does seem to jump around a lot when initially opening the app switcher too. I do really hope Apple fixes some of these long standing bugs in IOS 26, especially my Magnifier bug that's been driving me nuts for months now...

Hi all: I made a custom gesture for the app switcher. And sometimes it is not easy to close an app because of the voiceover focus issues.

Could it be that the regular swipe up with one finger might be conflicting with the app switcher showing apps aroaniassly on the home screen? from what I was told if someone could get a screen recording of the apps showing up on the home screen/or within folders apple accessibility wouldsend the information up to the engieneres to have them look to see what could be causing this, I know within IOS 17 this bug never showed up, so it is something within the coding of IOS 18 and beyond that is having this effect.

The issue is that when you touch the very bottom of the screen to perform a Home or app switcher gesture, voiceover repeats the last swipe gesture. Here’s a simple way to test it.
Go to the first item of any app. Rest your finger on the bottom of the screen, and start to drag it around slightly. If Voiceover doesn’t focus on the bottom of the screen, you should hear voiceover read out the name of the first item of whatever screen you’re on.

It’s been fixed for me ever since iOS 26 dev beta 1.

I am hopeful that this and other focus-related issues have been or will be resolved in iOS 26. I am also on an SE 2022 iPhone, and some of the focus issues are just frustrating.