The dedicated silent toggle was an essential iPhone component. Quickly glance at your phone to confirm it's silenced. Forget to silence? A quick toggle silences everything. Dumbest "upgrade" ever.
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Best Ways to Use the iPhone 16 Action Button
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It was nice to just look and notice the mode. With that in mind, I changed what was the small camera virtual button at the bottom of the lock screen to be my new silence mode button. What's nice about it is that you can very quickly see if the phone is in ring or silence mode. Action button is now my flashlight.
Since I skipped the 15 model, I haven't had a chance to customize this yet, but once my 16PM arrives, I'm sooo playing with this and setting a different function for different focuses. Gonna set it to translate for my upcoming Japan trip 
It’s amazing for the flashlight and orientation lock, but I’m never taking it off flashlight. I use it many times every day (when I hadn’t flipped a silent switch in years)… and being programmable it’s so much more useful than the camera control. I trust cc will become way more useful in the future with software updates.
So we’ll get a Start button next?iPhone hardware is becoming windows 3.1
My best use is to open the Tesla app to quickly control climate and other vehicle settings.
楽しんでください！Since I skipped the 15 model, I haven't had a chance to customize this yet, but once my 16PM arrives, I'm sooo playing with this and setting a different function for different focuses. Gonna set it to translate for my upcoming Japan trip
I've seen several people doing the same. This made me curious. When do you find you want the lock on? Which applications/uses? I don't think I've ever had a reason to use it. If some application is best in landscape then I hold the phone that way and likewise with those that work best in portrait.
I reassigned the lock screen's camera virtual button. What's nice about doing that is that the button image changes to show you whether it's currently in ring or silence mode.
Mainly for when i'm laying in bed on the side, i hate when stuff auto rotates.
But in general I always have portrait locked. I unlock it when needed. I used to do it in the control center, but since the action button i just programmed it for it.
Flashlight is the best setting IMO, you can never go wrong with an extra torch to sub your tactical light.
That being said, I can see using it as a translation button could be useful if you’re in a country where the language isn’t that familiar. I’ve been in those situations before and having that would have been highly useful.
That being said, I can see using it as a translation button could be useful if you’re in a country where the language isn’t that familiar. I’ve been in those situations before and having that would have been highly useful.
Therein lies the crux of the situation. It’s nice that it’s mappable to different functions because different people will use it differently. And then we’re basically going to use it only for that function.
Now this is nice for the action button. For the camera button though, that goes haywire when they embed so many different key functions into that one button.
ok, thanks. I never use my phone while lying on my side so never a need for this lock. I just hold the phone as best suits my purpose.
it is getting a bit boring now, nothing in the box, same phone as last year with little bit of twist
With the iPhone 16 lineup, Apple brought the Action Button to all four devices, expanding it from the Pro-only limitation last year. At the same time, there's a new Camera Control button that eliminates the need to activate the camera with the Action Button, which was one of the major useful functions. At the same time, there are new Control Center options that you can set to the Action Button, expanding what's possible.
This guide goes over what you can do with the Action Button with an iPhone 16 and iOS 18, and it may be useful to help you find something new to use it for.
Base Functions
Since the Action Button has been around since last year, Apple has several base functions that could be assigned to it.
Shortcuts
- Silent Mode - This toggles Silent Mode on and off, and it's the one-to-one replacement for the prior mute switch. This is useful if you often want to turn on sound and have the option to turn it off, but if you're a silent all the time person, it's not that functional.
- Focus - You can set the Action Button to toggle on any Focus mode that you've set up. This is a good option if you've got a Do Not Disturb type of Focus that you like to turn off and on throughout the day. Of course, Focus modes can also be set to turn on and off at specific times instead, so that's able to be automated in other ways.
- Camera - If you have an iPhone 16 with the Camera Control button, there's no need to set the Action Button to open the Camera, unless you want it to do something like open the selfie camera while the Camera Control button opens the rear camera. It's easy to swap camera modes from the Camera Control button or the Camera app once it's open, though.
- Flashlight - Flashlight is potentially one of the more useful Action Button settings if you regularly use the Flashlight function in the dark. Prior to iOS 18, the Flashlight was a mandatory Lock Screen button, but that's no longer the case. You can set other functions to the Lock Screen now, so it can make more sense to move the Flashlight to the Action Button depending on how often you use it.
- Voice Memos - Setting the Action Button to Voice Memo starts a recording when you press the button the first time, and stops it with a second press. In iOS 18, you can get transcriptions of Voice Memos, which adds a lot more functionality. If you want to record class lectures, interviews, or meetings regularly, setting Voice Memos to the Action Button might be your best bet.
- Recognize Music - This basically activates Shazam to tell you what music is playing around you. Unless you're using Shazam all the time, this is probably better to activate from Control Center.
- Translate - When you press the Action Button with Translate set, it'll automatically listen to what's being said and then provide a translation. You'll need to select your languages in the Translate app, but after that, it doesn't open up a full app. It's a quick access interface where you can get a translation and even have that translation spoken aloud. There are some limitations on languages, but if you're traveling to a country where one of the available languages is spoken, this one's a super useful way to take advantage of the Action Button.
- Magnifier - Magnifier opens up the Camera app and lets you set a zoom level so you can magnify small text. You can change brightness and contrast for better viewing, and put on the flash if it's dark. If you have eyesight issues and trouble with text that's too small, Magnifier has the potential to be helpful, and you'll probably need it often enough to justify assigning it to the Action Button.
- Accessibility - You can set the Action Button to any Accessibility feature. There are a long list of options, but some of the more useful ones to use with a quick access toggle include Zoom, VoiceOver, Voice Control, Apple Watch Mirroring, Background Sounds, Conversation Boost, Live Speech, and Guided Access.
- No Action - Don't want to use the Action Button? Setting it to No Action means it won't do anything when it's pressed.
You can set any Shortcut to be activated with the Action Button using the "Shortcuts" setting, and that's how some people get the most out of the feature. You can create a Shortcut that brings up several different apps and functions.
The "Super Action Button" shortcut, for example, opens up a menu where you can choose from options like taking a screenshot, turning on the flashlight, creating a Reminder, starting a Voice Memo, opening Apple Maps, creating a Calendar event, scanning a document, and more.
You can find a bunch of these online on Reddit or the MacRumors forums, or you can create your own with the functions that you want to access quickly.
Third-party apps that have Shortcuts created by developers will also show up in the Action Button Shortcuts section, so if you want to have the Action Button do something like open a book in Audible or create a to-do in Things, you would set that up with the Shortcuts app. Here are a few first and third-party app Shortcuts that might be useful:
What you have available for the Shortcuts Action Button option will depend on which apps you have installed and which Siri Shortcut features they've implemented. Note that this setting is distinct from the Control Center controls that you can also assign to the Action Button.
- ChatGPT - Ask ChatGPT a question that you type in, or start a voice conversation.
- Audible - Read a book or set a sleep timer.
- Clock - Set a timer.
- Files - Scan a document.
- Google - Start a Google search or a voice search.
- Music - Play music from your Apple Music library or a radio station.
- Phone - Call or FaceTime someone.
- Podcasts - Play a podcast.
- Things - Add a to-do.
- Fantastical - Create an event.
- Remote - Activate the Remote Control feature for Apple TV.
- Open an app - Set the Action Button to open any app you have installed.
To make things more confusing, there are different app actions in the Shortcuts app that aren't available in the Action Button settings unless you've previously set them up. You can, for example, have the Action Button launch an Amazon search, but only if you have se... Click here to read rest of article
Article Link: Best Ways to Use the iPhone 16 Action Button
They took a switch that basically no one used (most people keep their phone on silent all the time) and made it into a button that could perform the same function for the .3% of the population that like to switch between ring and silent, but could now be customized to have it do something else that you actually might find useful.
Doesn’t sound like a gimmick to me. Sounds like making the hardware in the same area more customizable and useful.
Sweet! Good idea! Now I can program the action button to a shortcut that sends my wife a randomly-selected dirty text made out of only emojis.
Would be really nice if you could kindly share the data pointing to the "0.3%".
Thank you.