The Camera Control button was introduced with the Apple iPhone 16, but people are still discovering new hidden features now, a few years later.
According to Apple, the Camera Control button is a multi-functional tactile and capacitive sensor.
In plain English, it means that what it can do depends on how you set it up, and also how you press it.
And as it turns out, there’s a lot more you can do with it other than just opening the camera.
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The list of things you can do with Camera Control is quite long
While Camera Control looks like a standard button, it supports a variety of gestures and customization options.
You can use Camera Control to launch the camera, but also third-party apps that use the iPhone camera as a key function – like Instagram, for example.
Pictured below: Camera Control (found on the side of the phone, below the power button) was introduced with Apple iPhone 16
Thai Nguyen/Unsplash
Similar to Google Lens, you can also use the button to engage the ‘Visual Intelligence’ Shortcut.
For example, you can point the camera at a sign and it’ll translate the sign if it’s in a language you don’t speak, or you can point it at a car, and it’ll tell you what model it is.
You can also tune it to use in-app gestures.
A light press pulls up the most recent setting, while a double light press opens a scrollable menu with different tools (Depth, Zoom, Styles, etc.)
You can also adjust the pressure force, changing the required light-press force from Lighter to Firmer.
Like a marathon, not a sprint
Thai Nguyen/Unsplash
Apple is often criticized for introducing incremental improvements that sometimes feel a little too incremental.
A new button here, a software improvement there.
For example, Apple got a lot of pushback for not including a higher refresh rate sooner.
But this is their MO, and it’s clearly working.
After all, over the last 10 years, the Apple iPhone series has consistently dominated as the top-selling, single-model smartphone worldwide.
And that has to mean something.