The Action Button is a new addition to the iPhone 15 Pro andiPhone 15 Pro Maxthat’s similar to the Action button that was introduced with thefirst Apple Watch Ultra. It replaces the Ring/Silent switch that’s found onother iPhonesand allows you to turn Silent mode on and off or use it for a range of other actions instead.
The intent is that youchoose what your Action Buttondoes, and it does that one thing. However, you don’t have to be limited to one thing at all.
I’ve set up my Action Button to do seven different things, depending on the circumstances. I will do four different things when I’m at home, depending on the time, and three different things when I’m away. All I ever need to do is press the Action Button once, and it will perform the appropriate action. Here’s how it works.
How can the Action button do more than one thing?
There are currently nine options that you may set your Action button to perform: Silent Mode, Focus, Camera, Torch, Voice Memo, Magnifier, Shortcut, Accessibility, and No Action. All of them allow you to perform just one task, except for one: Shortcut.
That’s because the Shortcut option allows you torun any shortcutyou wish, meaning you’re able to create a shortcut that doesdifferent things under different circumstances. It might do one thing before 6PM, for example, and one thing after 6PM. When you press the Action Button before 6PM, you’ll get one response, but when you press it after 6PM you’ll get a different one. By adding more and more actions and criteria to your shortcut, you can turn your Action Button into an all-action hero.
Apple iPhone 15 Pro
What my Action Button does
The possibilities are almost endless, and there was no reason why I needed to stop at seven things. You can keep adding steps to your Shortcut almost endlessly to perform different actions in different circumstances. I created this Shortcut just to see what I could do, but I’ll probably tweak it a fair bit over time to make it even more useful. Here are the seven things the Action Button on my iPhone 15 Pro does:
All of these options happen without any input. When I press the Action Button, it runs the Shortcut that decides which of the possible actions is the correct one in the current circumstances and performs that action. Like the best automations, once it’s set up, all the hard work is done for me; I just press the Action Button and the rest happens like magic.
How I created my Action button shortcut
Creating Shortcuts can be a fairly complex process, especially when you want them to do complex things. There is a huge range of actions to choose from, and many have multiple options within them. However, with a bit of practice, you can get the hang of a lot of the process and create custom shortcuts to do exactly what you want. If you’re new to Shortcuts, there aresome useful tipsthat can help you. Here’s how I created mine.
The first step is to decide whether I’m at home. You canfollow these stepsto create a shortcut that will do different things depending on whether you’re home or not. If I am at home, the shortcut then gets the current date. It takes the date with the date format set toNoneand the time format set toShortwhich will only return the time and not the date. It rounds the time to nearest whole number, which just gives the hour.
If the hour is greater than 19 (7PM) it runs theRemote Play/Pauseaction for myApple TV. If the hour is greater than 23 (11PM) it runs theTurn Offaction for my Philips Hue lights. If the hour is less than or equal to 8, it runs my ‘What’s Coming Up’ shortcut. And if the hour is none of these things (meaning it’s between 9AM and 7PM) it runs theToggle Do Not Disturbaction.
If I’m not at home, it gets the current distance from my local cinema using the sameGet Distanceaction that I used to determine if I was at home. If I’m within 0.1 miles of my cinema, it runs theToggle Silent Modeaction. If I’m not near my cinema, it gets the current connected Wi-Fi network name. If the name exists (meaning I’m connected to a Wi-Fi network) it runs theConnect to VPNaction. If the Wi-Fi network name doesn’t exist (meaning I’m not connected to Wi-Fi) it runs theToggle Wi-Fiaction. All of these actions are placed withinIf, Otherwise, End Ifactions so that they only run if the criteria are met.
you may see the full steps of the shortcut in the screenshots above.
