Alright. You don’t like the Camera Control button on your iPhone 16 series or maybe prefer using the onscreen controls because they are convenient and useful. Either way, you now have a dead button on the side of your iPhone that just sits there. So why not use it for something useful? There is a neat trick that will turn your Camera Control button into an Action button using the Shortcuts app.
I will show you how to open any app or execute any action using the Camera Control button. It worked every single time during our tests.
Remap Camera Control Button
I will be using the Shortcuts app for this. Here are the steps.
- Open Settings > Camera > Camera Control Button. You must set it to Camera, Code Scanner, or Magnifier – anything but ‘None’ option. I will go with Magnifier here.
- Open the Shortcuts app.
- Tap on New Automation or + icon in the Automation tab. This will open Personal Automation page.
- Select App here.
- Tap on Choose under When section.
- Select Magnifier here or one of the available options in the Camera Control as we discussed before. Tap on Done.
- Select Run Immediately and Is Opened options. Then tap Next.
- Select New Blank Automation.
- Select Open App at the bottom side. You can also select any action here.
- Tap on Open and select the app you want to assign to Camera Control button here. I selected Calculator app.
- Tap on Done to save the Shortcut.
Here is how it works. Press on the Camera Control button and instead of opening the Camera app, it will momentarily launch Magnifier before opening the Calculator app. Here is how it looks.
In a perfect world, like Android, you should be able to remap buttons on your iPhone. But hey, it works like a charm and you just have to wait half a second extra before your favorite app opens. You can get creative here and also choose actions in the Shortcuts app if you want. The possibilities are really limitless with Shortcuts in the play.
So what are you going to do with two action buttons?