When Apple announced theApple Watch Ultra , I was peculiarly interested in its introduction of an Action button , an extra bit of hardware that could be set to trigger just about anything on watchOS . I began to wonder if succeeding veritable Apple Watches might get their own Action buttons , too .
Now I ’m starting to wonder if the Action button might have been a signboard of a major fresh Apple feature to come . What if the Action release came to … the iPhone ? It sounds screwball — but it might happenas before long as this fall .
But first, the Apple Watch
Before I get you excited about the iPhone possibility here , I involve to let out the uncomfortable tidings about the Action button on the Apple Watch Ultra : It ’s not be up to its electric potential .
This is because the Action clitoris is n’t contextual . you’re able to assign it to any number of different action , but it behaves the same way in all linguistic context . No matter what app or ticker face you ’re using , the Action release just does one thing .
orchard apple tree
The Action button on the Apple Watch Ultra is a bit of a one-trick pony.
One of my Hope for the next version of watchOS is that Apple makes the activity button contextual . For example , you could program it to be a single function globally , or perhaps dissimilar apps could use it in different ways – get the user make up one’s mind . reenforcement for double - tap for dissimilar use cases would also help matters .
mediate between global and per - app commands is hard . Just consider the Mac , where assigning global hotkeys in the configurations app can stomp on the keyboard shortcuts in private apps – and vice versa . But render Apple Watch apps direct access to a hardware button ( I ’m looking at you , stop watch ) would be awful .
About those iPhone buttons
Now let ’s get to the iPhone . Rumor has it that Apple , in its continuing effort to dispatch moving part from its products , is choke to replace the volume buttons on the side of the iPhone with pressure - raw “ buttons , ” much as it did with the home button on the iPhone 7 . You ’d squeeze down on the buttons , but they would n’t move – there would just be a Haptic Engine pulse to indicate that you ’d pressed .
The revered ring / silent switch , which has been on every iPhone since the original model , would also be replaced – with a button . I assume it would mould likewise to the current switch , where there ’s a specific vibration when you put the phone into silent mode . Or perhaps there would be two dissimilar haptic vibe , one for put down silent mode and one for expire it .
But how many people habituate that replacement ? I leave my phone mute most of the time . you could dampen your phone from Control Center . What if I could … do something else with that button ?
The Action button on the Apple Watch Ultra is a bit of a one-trick pony.
You see where I ’m blend in with this .
My button, my actions
I need to give full credit to Federico Viticci of MacStories forwalking through the new push configurationon the Connected Podcast . Once you consider the theme that Apple ’s summate a button on the side of the iPhone , it ’s hard not to be tempt by the mind that it should be reprogrammable . And would n’t that button be the equivalent of the Apple Watch ’s Action button ?
deal the possibilities . At the very least , Apple could handle that button like the Apple Watch Ultra treats its button : as a trigger for a individual , global shortcut that would be executed no matter where you were in the iPhone interface . opine map it to the Camera app or the flashlight feature article , for instance .
It might be fun if apps had admittance to the button or if user could control what it did contextually . ( I straight off began to ideate having it trigger a Shortcut , which could then decide what to do based on my current Focus status , the time of day , or some other variable star . ) But my best guess is that Apple will be button-down , at least at first , and have the unexampled clitoris mime the ring / silent toggle – by nonremittal .
What if that switch that’s been on every iPhone was replaced with an Action button?
However , Apple has shown that it ’s happy to let users try out with unlike ways of interacting with Apple ’s ironware and computer software via preferences in the Accessibility section of the preferences app . It would n’t storm me if Apple would get users represent that button to some other function via an Accessibility setting , with alternative like toggling the torch , entering a specific accessibility fashion , plunge an app , or running a shortcut . And if running a cutoff is an choice , then the sky ’s the boundary .
In any event , I wo n’t miss the ring / understood on/off switch switch . And I ’m excited that it might be supercede with a push button that can be actually programmed to do something I want rather than being devote to a single-valued function I never use .
