After living its entire life with a side switch, the iPhone has evolved to feature a programmable action button with the 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max. Below are all the ways to customize your iPhone's action button.
Apple Watch Ultra got an action button last year, and this time it's the iPhone's turn with 15 Pro and Pro Max.
The Action button is located in the same place as the side switch on previous iPhones and is used by a long press.
Apple notes that when you change the Action button ” for something other than silent mode control, you can go to Control Center or use Focus Modes to change the ringer.
Customize the iPhone action button
In iOS 17, go to Settings > Action button on iPhone 15 Pro/Pro Max, and you can customize the action button to trigger:
- Silent mode (default)
- Focus mode
- Camera
- Flashlight
- Voice memo
- Magnifying glass and other special features
- Shortcut
- Translation (appears with update “later this year”). ”)
Best comment from TB
It's a shame Apple makes it so that if you press and hold the action button it will switch to silent mode, but if you just press it in normal mode, it will perform the action you selected. It looks like it could be a lot more useful.
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While the Action button can control eight basic functions, the ability to customize it to manage accessibility shortcuts or launch your own shortcut from the Shortcuts app is great. is huge. This means the possibilities are virtually endless.
Some features use the Action button while you're in the app. For example, if you launch Camera using the Action button, you can press it again to take a photo. If you start recording a voice memo, you can use the Action button to stop recording, etc.
What do you want to configure the Action button to control? Share your ideas in the comments!
And check out a hands-on look at the Action button from my colleague Chance, who was at the Wonderlust event:
