Unlocking the Potential: Mastering the Action Button on the iPhone 15 Pro & Pro Max

Year after year, we iPhone users eagerly await the announcement and release of the newest flagship offering from Apple. While I may not be a tech reviewer, I knew I had to get my hands on the iPhone 15 Pro. I am not one to upgrade every year. Like the average consumer, I get a brand new phone and wear it out for a few years before I even think of upgrading. However, with the introduction of the action button, I thought it would be time for an upgrade.

From the very start, I knew the action button would be a game changer. I thought to myself how I could utilize the action button to maximize its capabilities. I scoured through the internet, watching videos and reading articles and reddit posts on how other buyers configured their action button. A small amount of users kept the action button as the mute button. Others set the button to use one of the preset options. A larger percentage of users utilized shortcuts to use the button to open up a list of actions for them to choose from. However, I was not satisfied. I thought to myself, the button should work differently depending on what app you are using. Once I saw that nobody else had the same idea as me, I got straight to work.

It took me a few days of testing different variations of if statements and automations in the shortcuts app to finally figure it out. The following is how I managed to create an action button that has different functions depending on what app is currently open on your phone.

To begin, I opened the Files app on my phone and created a folder named “Shortcuts” by selecting the three dots on the top right and selecting New Folder. After I created the folder, I went into the Shortcuts app and created another folder called “Action Button”. You can do this by selecting Shortcuts at the top left, and then selecting the folder Icon at the top right.

From here, the first shortcut I made is one that saves a blank file to the “Shortcuts” folder in the Files app. I named this shortcut “Delete Text”. The first action I added is the Text action. I left the text blank. The second action I added was Save File. I change the folder to lead to “Shortcuts”. I uncheck “Ask Where To Save”. In the Subpath, I put “/ActionButton/app.txt”. What this will do is create a blank file in the “Shortcuts” folder. I check “Overwrite If File Exists”. That concludes the first shortcut.

The following shortcuts include the same principle as “Delete Text”, but now, they will be saving text to the app.txt file that was created. The second shortcut I created was for Apple Music, which I named “Music Text”. Just like “Delete Text”, I added the Text and Save File action, but instead of leaving the text blank, I added the word “Music”. The location of the subpath should be the same as “Delete Text”. From here, I had the bare necessities of what I needed. I created eight more shortcuts like this. For example, for the Reminders App, I used “Reminder” instead of “Music”, and for the Notes App, I used “Notes”, and so on. I did this for Maps, Clock, Safari, Spotify, Apple Translate, and Voice Memos. Once I had all these shortcuts created, I moved on to the Automation tab.

To start off the Automations, I created one automation for each “___ Text” shortcut. I pressed the + button on the top right. I scrolled down to where it says App. For the “Music Text”, I chose the Apple Music App only. I kept “Is Opened” option selected. Then I switched “Run After Confirmation” to “Run Immediately”. I kept “Notify When Run” off. I selected next. In this part, I find the corresponding shortcut. Since I did music first, I selected the “Music Text” shortcut I created earlier. Then I selected Done. I did this for every app I made a shortcut for. Once I was finished with all the apps I made shortcuts for, it was time to make an automation for “Delete Text”.

For the automation for “Delete Text”, instead of choosing one app, you are choosing all the other apps that have automations. Instead of selecting “Is Opened”, here I selected “Is Closed'“. Again, I chose “Run Immediately”, and I kept “Notify When Run” off. Then I find the “Delete Text” shortcut that I made. From here, all my automations were finished. Of course, throughout my testing phase, when I added more apps, I had to create an automation for the app and its coinciding shortcut, along with adding the app to the “Delete Text” automation.

Next came the hard part. Back in the Shortcuts tab, I created a new shortcut and named it “Action v1.0”. This is the actual shortcut that the Action Button is set to. The first action in the shortcut is “Get File from Folder”. This allowed me to find the .txt file that I created earlier. The set it to the same subpath I set earlier, which is “/ActionButton/app.txt”. After that is set, the next action is an If statement. I wanted the button to still act as the silent button whenever I was on my home screen. So the If statement was If app.txt does not have any value. Make sure, when you click on app.txt in the If statement, the type is set to Text. The following action was Toggle Silent Mode. It is important to note that the actions after “Toggle Silent Mode” HAVE TO BE Otherwise, and then, End if. The same goes for any other action in this shortcut.

The next action I wanted to make was to allow the Action Button to add the current song to a playlist. For every action, I had Get File from Folder. This is where the if statement started to get different. This time the If statement was If app.txt is Music. From there I found the action Get Current Song. After that action I added Add to Playlist. I changed “My Music Library” to “Ask Each Time”.

I repeated this process for each app I wanted a customized action for. For Voice Memos, I found the Create Recording action. For Notes, I found the New Note action. For Reminders, It was a little bit more difficult. I found the Ask for Input action. Then I found the Add New Reminder action, which worked a lot smoother in my testing.

After I finished adding all the actions, I put the action button to the test. I went into my iPhone settings and found the Action Button setting. I swiped until it showed me the shortcut option. I found my current version of Action v1.0. All that was left was to test it. Of course, I failed miserably the first few times I tried it. But if I didn’t fail, I would have learned nothing.

Throughout a few weeks, I managed to get up to version 1.14. My most updated version now includes actions based on Device Orientation. This allowed me to have multiple functions while I’m on my homescreen such as opening my camera when my phone is sideways, as well as turning on my flashlight when my phone is parallel to the ground. This was achievable thanks to the Actions app on the Apple Store. This app adds a plethora of actions for someone to use in the shortcuts app.

If you have reached this far, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this. I hope this can serve as a guide to anyone looking to get more out of their action button.