Read the World Today - Everything You Can Do With iPhone 15 Pro's Action Button

With the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Pro Max, the mute switch is officially dead. In its place, you now get an Action button, similar to the one on the Apple Watch Ultra. Thankfully, this button still works as a mute switch. If you press and hold the button, you’ll switch between ringer and silent modes. iOS will even tell you if you aren’t holding the button down long enough. Neat!

So, the physical mute button isn’t going anywhere; it’s just different. But it’s not solely meant for muting or non-muting: You can choose what it does when you press it, and Apple has created a good system for easily customizing what the button can do.

How to customize the Action button on iPhone 15 Pro

The Action button on the Pro iPhones (the iPhone 15 still gets the old mute switch) serves as a quick launch button for many of iPhone’s standard features. You can go to Settings > Action Button to customize this action at any time.

You can use the Action button to quickly open the camera without fumbling with on-screen controls. Similarly, you can use it to toggle your flashlight on and off, so you don’t need to rely on the Home Screen shortcut or Control Center tile. It can also start a recording using Voice Memos, open the Magnifier app, trigger a Focus, or open the Translate app (although this won’t be available until later this year). You can also activate any accessibility shortcut using the Action button, so you can toggle actions like VoiceOver, AssistiveTouch, and more.

All the cool things you can do using Shortcuts

Speaking of shortcuts, the Action button supports Shortcuts as well, so you can create and assign a shortcut automation to the Action button. You can do something simple—like open Spotify, choose to play a specific playlist, or run a complex automation—just by pressing the Action button. If you can build it in Shortcuts, you can trigger it with your 15 Pro’s new button.

That’s not all. Thanks to the internet and community shortcuts, you can create or import a shortcut automation for your Action button. Here are some of our favorite options, crowdsourced from the Apple community.

Orientation Aware Action Shortcut: This is one of the most impressive action shortcuts out there. It works based on your iPhone’s current orientation: When you press the button while holding the phone straight up, it works as the regular mute switch. But when holding your iPhone in landscape, this button can open the Camera. Flip your iPhone around so it’s in reverse landscape mode, and the button now records video. Use the screenshot in the link to recreate the shortcut on your own!
Make your own Shortcut menu: YouTuber Stephen Robles has a great guide on creating a custom menu that appears every time you press the Action button. This can be customized to fulfill any need.
Create a Focus aware shortcut: This is a really cool shortcut idea that triggers different actions based on the Focus you’re on. If you’re in Sleep Focus, it turns on the flashlight; if you’re in Travel focus, it opens the Flighty app; and so on. Perhaps Workout Focus can open the Music app.
Add a new task in your favorite to-do app: Many popular to-do apps like Things and even Apple’s Reminders app have shortcuts that let you quickly add a task from anywhere. Assign this shortcut to the Action button, and now you have no excuse to forget any task.
ChatGPT button: We’ve already shown you how to bring the power of ChatGPT to your iPhone using a custom shortcut and OpenAI keys. Just assign that shortcut to the Action button, and now you have a dedicated ChatGPT button that you can call up at any time.
Google Assistant button: In a similar way, you can install Google Assistant app, and create a shortcut that brings up Google’s voice assistant with just a press of a button.
A dedicated significant-other button: You can create a shortcut that makes a FaceTime Video or a WhatsApp Video call to your significant other. This turns the Action button into a dedicated button for your partner!
A quick note button: You can create a shortcut that lets you add a quick note in the Notes app (or any other third-party app like Bear Notes, Evernote and more).