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Best Ways to Use the iPhone 16 Action Button
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I wish there was an option to set the action button for volume up. I don't know which genius came up with this idea to put a more or less useless button with the same tactile feel as the volume buttons in place of the old toggle for silent. I don't know about the rest of you, but I often have to now look at my phone to see which button on the left I need to press in conjunction with the power button to do a screenshot. Thanks, TIM! Maybe I'll do an option shortcut to take a screenshot
P.S. You can add more orientations (like face down or face up) for additional functions, but for me, two functions is ideal. It's neither overly basic, nor overly complicated.
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Something that always surprises me that not more people are talking about this: ever since the removal of the physical mute switch, you can use the Shortcuts app to mute and unmute the phone automatically! No reason to ‘waste’ the Action button as a mute switch. I created an automation that automatically mutes my iPhone (and my Apple Watch) when I leave my home, and unmutes them when I return.
I have the button on my 15 Pro set to show a pop up menu I set up in Shortcuts. The Mute text is a toggle and will display either as Mute/Unmute as appropriate. The “VPN & DNS” and “Lights” options go into sub menus (and lights show as on or off dynamically). Flashlight just toggles the light and remote + groceries launch the Apple TV remote app or reminders at my groceries list respectively.
Works well but I find it realllllly cumbersome to set the whole thing up as I find Shortcuts a bit of a hassle to do more complex routines in from a UI perspective, especially checking light status and showing different icons based off that. The results good but effort required means I’m not updating it a lot to add new things.
Edit: I’ll note I set this all up last year. Today with iOS18, I’d just use Control Centre for this. Similar results in 5% of the time, and 1000x more maintainable.
Works well but I find it realllllly cumbersome to set the whole thing up as I find Shortcuts a bit of a hassle to do more complex routines in from a UI perspective, especially checking light status and showing different icons based off that. The results good but effort required means I’m not updating it a lot to add new things.
Edit: I’ll note I set this all up last year. Today with iOS18, I’d just use Control Centre for this. Similar results in 5% of the time, and 1000x more maintainable.
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With iOS 18.1, you can use the action button to activate control centre. Handy if you don’t like reaching for the top right corner every time. 🙂
FYI, double pressing the power button on the right brings up your wallet. It brings it up ready to pay but you can also tap on the cards to then bring up any card.
Cool. But most people that change their mute during the day do so for a whole host of situations like being in a meeting, at a movie, taking a nap, etc.
I feel like I’m using the silent switch all the time for awful apps that use it as their own personal mute switch.
I never have my ringer on and yet still need the damn switch so I can hear app content.
It baffles me that Apple would introduce this switch without mandating that apps are not allowed to do this.
So even though I also never turn my ringer on, the action button is the most pointless change ever. I’m not changing its function.
Blowing my mind that no one else in this thread seems to have this problem. I must be unlucky with my app selection.
Like, you NEVER run into this?
People may or may not deal with what you have but it's hard to tell what you're talking about from your post. Apps have notifications (if you opt for them) and they make a sound if not muted. Is that a problem? Are you wanting the mute to mute phone ringing but not app notifications?
This is now.
I just switched from 12 Pro to 15 Pro Max. Got a huge discount and decided not to go with 16 because the upgrade doesn't seem significant enough to me. I expected I'd keep using it as a mute button but because there's a crossed bell icon on the screen now I just placed it in the control centre. I created an aod shortcut for when I'm at work but it only toggles it on. I need to turn it off in the settings and that's super annoying, especially since we can't have it in the control centre. 😒
I've gotten used to doing these sorts of things in notification centers (for both Android and iOS). That said, having a dedicated, physical button, would cause me to revisit this sort of thing.
I’m talking about video games where you can’t hear any sound if the phone is switched to mute.
I have to unmute the phone to play the game and then mute it again when I exit.
That is odd seeing as how you could just lower the volume if you wanted to be more discreet. That's like muting your music or the sound of a movie when using that switch which would be wrong too. I'd post a complaint to the maker of the game.
I just tested a bunch of my games and the first 7 I tried ALL behave this way.
I'm afraid the issue is bigger than one person making complaints can address. Apple should have been discouraging this from the beginning.