The iPhone 15 Pro’s New Action Button is Great But What Can It Do?

Apple unveiled its iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max handsets yesterday, and as expected, the new devices sport a new Action button that replaces the traditional ringer mute switch. Now that the change has been made, what can the Action button do? I mean besides act as a ringer mute switch.

The new Action button can be set to perform several actions, customized based on the user’s needs. Users can even set the Action button to trigger Shortcuts, allowing the iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max to perform several functions at once, all with a single press of the button.

Once users have set up their iPhone 15 Pro’s Action button to perform their favorite functions, a press of the button will activate the actions, while providing haptic feedback and information displayed on the device’s handy Dynamic Island.

Make no mistake, the Action button can still act as a mute toggle — a single press turns it on while a second press turns it off. However, if you restrict the button to acting as a mute switch, you’ll be missing out.

While Apple didn’t go into much detail about the new Action button, it can be tied to several iPhone features.

iPhone 15 Pro and iP{hone 15 Pro Max users can set the Action button to control any of the following functions:

• Mute on/off (DUH!)
• Flashlight on or off
• Launch the Camera app
• Activate Accessibility features
• Toggle Focus Mode on and off
• Launch the Voice Memos app
• Launch Translate
• Launch Magnifier
• Launch a Shortcut

The Shortcut-launching feature is perhaps the feature I’m personally excited about. Since Shortcut allows you to chain several commands when creating a Shortcut, the possibilities are nearly unlimited as to what you can accomplish with a single press of the Action button.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Shortcuts, a Shortcut is a quick way to perform one or more tasks with your iPhone’s apps. Using the Shortcuts app, you can create your own shortcuts that include multiple steps. For example, you could create a “Time to Drive to Work” shortcut that grabs a weather report, loads Apple Maps so you can get a drive time estimate to work, and launches your favorite podcast or music playlist.

That said, you don’t necessarily have to create your own Shortcuts. The Shortcuts app includes a handy gallery of pre-programmed Shortcuts, and it’s likely that you can find one in the gallery that will perform your needed tasks with little to no need for customization.

The Accessibility features will also certainly come in handy for users who take advantage of the iPhone’s accessibility functionality, again, allowing users to activate an Accessibility feature on the fly with a push of the button.

Happily, we won’t have to wait for third-party developers to update their apps to take advantage of the Action button, as a simple Shortcut can be created to launch an app or its related Shortcuts.

Pre-orders of the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max will kick off on September 15. Shipments and in-store availability will happen beginning September 22.