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The iPhone’s Camera Button Is Amazing
With the iPhone 16 Apple introduced the camera control button. This is a touch-sensitive button that you can press to open the camera and press again to enter the camera. It can also be used to adjust a handful of settings in the camera app.
And reviewers hated this button. They said it was hard to reach and unintuitive. Eventually the complaints died down when people got used to it but the sense I got from reviews was that this button was just not useful.
And for a while I thought the same thing because I was at home and not taking photos. But recently I went on a vacation with my iPhone Air and I have to say that I absolutely love the camera button.
The most obvious use is opening the camera and taking a picture real quick. Before you had to turn on the phone, long-press the camera shortcut, and then tap the screen to take a photo. Or I think you can use the volume button, although if you already touched the screen using the screen button is more intuitive. With the camera button all you do is press twice to open the camera and another time to take the picture. I think it’s possible to change it so you can unlock the phone and open the camera in a single press but I haven’t gotten around to doing this.
This makes taking photos significantly faster. Before I really had to think about it. Now I can just…
