Everything you can do with it

Despite rumors of a buttonless iPhone, Apple has continued to add new physical ways to interact with the device. It replaced the Silent Switch with a new Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro series — a feature that’s now available on the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus later this year. Apple has also added a new Camera Control button, designed to “elevate the camera experience across the iPhone 16 lineup.”

The iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max have a Camera Control button on the right side. This touch-sensitive switch can be used in a variety of ways. You can tap, press, press and hold, or swipe to perform different actions in the Camera app. Apple says it will allow developers to bring Camera Control to third-party apps like Snapchat.

iPhone 16 Camera Button: List of Things You Can Do

You can interact with the Camera Control button via light press, press and hold, and swipe gestures. Third-party developers will also be able to use it for things like searching Google for where to find or buy an item, or triggering ChatGPT.

Here are the currently supported actions in the Camera app on iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Pro.

• Start the camera: Click the Camera Control button once to launch Camera. This works like double-clicking the power button on Android devices to quickly launch the Camera app.
• Take a photo: Press the camera control button again to take a photo.
• Make a video: Press and hold the button to start recording video.
• Open camera controls: Lightly press the camera control button to display controls such as zoom, focus lock, exposure (available later), and more.
• Camera preview menu: Pressing the button twice launches the camera menu, which offers options such as depth of field and exposure control.
• Adjust zoom, change photo style and more: Once you’re in the Preview menu, you can swipe to adjust zoom, exposure, and depth of field. You can also swipe through photo styles without touching the screen.

The Camera Control button frees up the viewfinder to give you more room to frame your shots. Almost all viewfinder controls are accessible without touching the screen.

Use the camera control button to get visual intelligence

The Camera Control button also powers Apple’s new “Visual Intelligence” feature, designed to “help users learn about objects and places faster than ever before.” The feature will roll out next year in regions supported by Apple Intelligence, which won’t be available at launch.

Visual Intelligence works similarly to Google Lens. You can point the rear camera at an object, press and hold a button, and it will display details like restaurant hours, ratings, and even add an event from a flyer to your calendar.

Apple also showed off a use case where you can point the iPhone 16 at a dog and press and hold the Camera Control button to identify its breed online. But I highly recommend asking your human companion about their furry friend. Let’s keep our humanity alive in the age of AI.