Action Button Expansion: Apple Brings Customizable Control to Entire iPhone 16 Lineup

According to MacRumors, Apple’s introduction of an Action button in the iPhone 15 Pro series will become a standard feature across the iPhone 16 series.

MacRumors elaborated in their article that the design and plan for the “Action button” dates back to at least 2021. Initially, the iPhone 15 Pro series was also set to feature innovative “haptic volume” and “power button” controls. However, due to unresolved technical challenges, these features were scrapped, whereas the “Action button” was retained and ultimately incorporated into the final mass-produced models of the iPhone 15 Pro series.

In the iPhone 16 series, Apple plans to not only make the “Action button” ubiquitous but also to transform the mechanical buttons into capacitive ones, thereby endowing the “Action button” with additional functionalities. The revamped “Action button,” codenamed “Atlas,” is expected to function similarly to the “Home button” on older iPhone models or the Force Touch trackpad on the latest MacBooks.

Furthermore, MacRumors mentioned that the updated “Action button” will be equipped with a pressure sensor, enabling the phone to perform various interactive functions based on the detected pressure. However, there are no documents yet revealing its specific performance. The previously leaked “camera button” for the iPhone 16 series is also expected to share functionalities with the improved “Action button.”

Additionally, Apple has experimented with different sizes of the “Action button,” with some designs being larger than the current ones on the iPhone 15 Pro series, closely resembling the size of the volume buttons. Moreover, according to previous reports from MacRumors, the “Action button” will also feature in the fourth generation of the iPhone SE series, paving the way for the “Action button” to fully replace the traditional mute switch in future iPhone models.