[edoloughlin]

and the whole swiping from the button [bottom?] kept making the screen go down to the bottom half

This happens to me way more than I would like. For the life of me, I can't figure out the utility in being able to move my lock screen 1/2 way down the phone and have blank space on top. I don't know what this feature is or how I would activate it if I actually wanted to.

[quux]

That feature is called "reachability" and is designed to let the user access controls at the top of the screen with their thumb. It's a nice idea but triggers unintentionally too often IMO.

https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-reachability-iph1...

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

Thank you! I couldn't remember the name of it (and didn't feel like digging through menus to find it), so I haven't been able to disable until just now!

[Gilthoniel]

It made way more sense when it was introduced with the iPhone 6 Plus because there was still a home button. Much less likely to accidentally trigger it with that compared to the full screens we have now. It’s triggered by swiping down on the bottom of the screen, nowadays essentially the opposite motion of how you’d exit an app. Anyway, you can disable it in Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Reachability.

[layer8]

FWIW, you can turn Reachability off under Settings > Accessibility > Touch.

[senordevnyc]

It’s so you can reach the top half of the screen when using the phone with one hand

[SoftTalker]

Because the phones are too freaking big.

[tclancy]

I've found my people! Going to shut that setting off right now.