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In defense of the iPhone Action Button
You don’t have to be a total nerd to use it, but it helps.
Now I use the button several times a day: long-pressing it to get to an option that turns all the lights off before I go to bed; selecting multiple AirPlay speakers at once in an easy-to-use menu format that waits for me to finish choosing before it streams my audio to them; connecting to my AirPods when Apple’s auto-switching feature (all too frequently) doesn’t work right. I do all of this by mapping the button to a custom Shortcut — Apple’s powerful automations app that comes included with every iPhone, iPad, and Mac. This use, from a comment on the YouTube upload of that Vergecast episode,takes advantage of the fact that Shortcuts can trigger different actions based on the orientation of your phone.
Or read this on The Verge