With the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, the mute button has become history. In its place is now an Action button similar to the one on the Apple Watch Ultra. Fortunately, this button can still function as a mute switch. If you press and hold the button, you can switch between ringtone and silent modes. iOS even tells you if you didn’t hold the button down long enough.
So the physical mute button isn’t actually going anywhere; just different. But muting is not the only function of the Action button. So, what else can we do with this f button?
You can choose what the button does when you press it, and Apple has created a nice system for easily customizing what the button can do. The Action button on the Pro iPhone 15s (the iPhone 15 and Plus still have the old mute button) can act as a quick launch button for many of the iPhone’s standard features. You can go to Settings > Action Button to customize this action at any time.
For example, you can use the Action button to quickly open the camera without fumbling with on-screen controls. Similarly, you can use it to turn your flashlight on and off, so you don’t need the Home Screen shortcut or Control Center tile. You can also enable any accessibility shortcut using the Action button, so you can switch between actions like VoiceOver, AssistiveTouch, and more.
Speaking of Shortcuts, the Action button also supports Shortcuts. So you can easily create and assign a shortcut automation to the button. It’s possible to do something simple like open Spotify, choose to play a specific playlist, or run a complex automation just by pressing the Action button.
57715
