I can’t figure out what causes the behavior shown in the attachment, some gesture is obviously triggering it. Have to swipe up to restore full screen. There must be a reason this was designed in, but I can’t think what it would be. Anyone know, and know how to make it stop? At this point I just see it as an annoyance.
thanks!
Karl
iPhone 7 os 15.8.2
iPhone Screen quirk.pdf (300.9 KB)
According to Apple
Go to Settings 
> Accessibility > Touch, then turn on Reachability (Or to turn off)
As mentioned, it’s reachability. One of my favorite features, often very useful when you are trying to use the phone with one hand. Surely since you don’t like it or need it you’ll just want to turn it off, but I just wanted to mention that you don’t have to swipe to go back to full screen - just tap that arrow at the top, or on a home button phone like the 7 I think you can just do the double-tap (not double-click) of the home button gesture again to go back to full screen. Iirc this was not a default setting when it first came out with the (I think) 6 and 6+, but after a while Apple turned it into a default.
Thanks all, mystery solved, now I’m just amazed that I hadn’t figured it out on my own. I wish I had piped up about this years ago but, oh well. I can see how that could be very useful on a large device, but on a 7, especially if one has large hands, not so much.
Thanks again.