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As September approaches, people begin to look forward to an invitation letter from California - the invitation letters of previous years would showcase the new features of the iPhone in various forms.

This year, the most eye-catching news among all the leaks is that there will be a camera button on the body of the new iPhone.

It is not uncommon to add buttons to the body of a phone, especially a camera button. One of the hallmarks of Nokia's Lumia series is the camera shortcut button on the right side of the phone.

The iPhone has maintained its original form factor for seven years since the iPhone X. It doesn’t seem to have changed much, but Apple’s desire to change the buttons on the phone has already happened quietly.

iPhone 15 Pro's Action button: Why few people use it

On the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max, the mute lever, which has been used since the birth of the iPhone, has become an Action button with customizable functions.

At first I was intrigued - as a photographer, it was exciting to be able to wake up the camera without having to unlock the phone.

So I set it as a camera right away, and then I encountered the first problem with using this button: the ergonomic design was unreasonable.

As people's demand for display effects increases, mobile phone screens are also getting larger.

But the width of human hands is limited. If you want to increase the display area in the limited horizontal space, the easiest way is to increase the vertical space. As a result, mobile phones have become longer and longer, and the iPhone is no exception.

The Action button is near the top of the left side of the phone, and on the narrow body, it's difficult for my left hand to reach it directly.

To long-press the phone comfortably, I have to move my palm upwards and hold it near the middle of the phone - which is different from the normal posture for using a phone.

Originally, this position belonged to the mute lever. After switching to the mute state, I basically have no urgent need for subsequent operations. I can steadily adjust my grip back and then use the phone, but the photography function is different - after waking up the camera, I need to stabilize my hands as soon as possible to prevent the picture from shaking.

Coincidentally, this problem also occurs on Nubia Z series phones.

Nubia has also set up an eye-catching slider for the body. Under the default settings, you only need to slide lightly to call out the camera, but the same problem still exists.

I was determined to continue using it for a while, and then the second question came up:

In the week that followed, I barely used it, still subconsciously waking up the screen and opening the camera from the lock screen.

The reason is not hard to understand. The design of this button is really not intuitive - a button located above the volume button, it is hard for me to think of it as a photo button at the first glance.

So I often regret after taking a photo: why did I forget the specially set "shortcut key" again.

But this regret will not affect me from forgetting it next time.

This is not an isolated case. On Reddit, there are many people who have forgotten this button. One user wrote in response to "How do you use this Action button":

I set up the flashlight and then forgot about it.

Quickly calling up the camera is just one of the functions of this new Action key. As long as you need it, it also supports customizing many other functions and shortcuts to help you expand its usage boundaries to cope with a variety of usage environments.

After giving up on waking up the camera, I tried a shortcut that was once widely circulated on the Internet.

The specific operation method is as follows: when you trigger this Action button, the phone will call different functions according to the current status. For example, when the phone screen is covered, the Action button controls the mute switch; when the phone is raised horizontally, the Action button wakes up the camera; when the phone is placed face up, it wakes up the payment code.

That sounds wonderful.

However, in practice, the situation is a bit awkward: either you take out your mobile phone, start the process in front of everyone, and then press the Action button to wait for the function to be triggered - this operation process has inexplicable blockages, resulting in idle time that always requires me or the person I am interacting with to wait, but it is not insurmountable.

The worse problem is that I often forget what form the function I need corresponds to. Every time I need a certain function and forget it, pressing the Action button is as exciting as playing Russian roulette.

In the history of mobile phones, multi-function buttons are actually not uncommon.

When Xiaomi Mi 4 was launched, there was a special peripheral that could be plugged into the 35mm headphone jack on the phone: Mi Key.

The structure of this metal button is very simple. One end is a standard 3.5mm headphone plug, and the other end is just a slightly protruding button. After installing it on the mobile phone, just press it lightly to wake up the corresponding function set in advance.

It can be said that this is an external Action button.

But the Mi Key, like the new Action key on the iPhone 15 Pro, is confusing:Customizability and shortcuts allow us to give a button infinite possibilities, but they also confuse the meaning of the button itself.

Similar interactive chaos is not uncommon in recent years.

With some current earphones, it is difficult to figure out where the interactive area is at the first sight, and it requires users to spend a lot of time.

For example, Sony's WH-1000XM3, its noise reduction function button and power button are both on the left side of the headset, and are both long and narrow in shape. When I first started using it, I felt like I was gambling every time I used it.

Don Norman is a scientist who specializes in the field of human-computer interaction. In 1993, Apple created a position specifically for him called "User Experience Architect" to help improve the design and user experience of Apple products through the perspective of cognitive science.

After leaving his job, he expressed his views in his book The Design of Everyday Things (1988):

A good design should be intuitive, it will make people feel like a natural extension of their body. When the solution is intuitive, it feels like a natural extension of the person using it. That's good design.

Good design should allow users to use it without thinking, when it repeatedly forces users to think and adapt, reminding themselves of its function.To some extent, this design has failed.

This statement has been used for more than 20 years and is still not outdated when used to criticize the new Action button on the iPhone.

So after using it for a short while, I gave up this slightly "fancy" shortcut and returned to the silent switch.

▲ There are many people who make the same choice as me

Making a simple button complicated is what Apple did on the iPhone 15 Pro.

But what’s interesting is that it was also Apple that made mobile phone buttons much simpler.

Apple's design philosophy swings

The industrial design of mobile phone bodies has gone through nearly twenty years, from being diverse to being unified, with a clear watershed.

The mobile phone market after the millennium is dominated by functionality, with the body of the phone covered with a variety of physical buttons. These buttons are mainly used for dialing, hanging up, text input and various portable operations - this leaves a lot of room for manufacturers to play.

On the "classic" Nokia 3310, in addition to the basic numeric keypad and call button, there is also a central navigation key that can easily browse menus, select functions and confirm operations, so that users can quickly navigate complex menu structures.

▲ Menu button on Nokia 3310

In addition to the basic functions, each company will also display its own special functions and design them as fixed buttons on the body.

For example, the Walkman series of mobile phones launched by Sony Ericsson have made the play/pause, volume adjustment and track skipping buttons into physical buttons, which are distributed on the front and sides of the phone, so that users can enjoy music more conveniently.

There is also the BlackBerry, the "white moonlight" in the hearts of countless people. With the help of the number and symbol keys on the front of the phone, it developed a unique "full keyboard input" function, which became the favorite of business people of that era.

▲ BlackBerry 8100 launched in 2006

The reason why feature phones have so many buttons is not only the differentiated competitive route of manufacturers, but more because of the system: whether it was the mainstream Symbian system at the time or the unique BlackBerry OS, neither generally supported touch screens, and the operating interface was not intuitive enough. Therefore, the setting of each function key is trying to simplify user operations, which has become a necessary condition for the use of mobile phones.

As the wheel of history rolls, the arrival of a groundbreaking device has sent most physical buttons into history.

In 2007, everyone in the Moscone Center in San Francisco held their breath, their eyes focused on the center of the stage, where Jobs was announcing to everyone:

We're going to reinvent the phone. We're going to make a leap forward product that's smarter than any mobile device ever made and super easy to use. And all we're going to do is remove all those buttons and just have a giant screen.

Apple launches the first iPhone.

Relying on iOS, which was ahead of all operating systems at the time, Apple crammed most functions into that "all-powerful" screen. Just by tapping the screen a few times with your fingers, you can input text, make calls, even take photos and send and receive emails.

「Less but better」This concept, proposed by German designer Dieter Rams and which has influenced the design of countless products, has finally begun to be implemented on mobile terminals with the advancement of technology.

▲ Braun Studio 2 represents the concept of "Less but better"

Seventeen years have passed in the blink of an eye, and the speeches of Jobs and Jony Ive are still ringing in our ears, but Apple has successively replaced two designers at the helm - since the birth of the iPhone series, it is now the "third generation".

These three changes of personnel symbolize the change in the concept of Apple's design team. The first generation Jony Ive was a designer who adhered to the "Less but better" philosophy and led countless classic and stunning Apple product designs.

But when design overshadows functionality, mistakes like "butterfly keyboard" and "dream single tube pressing i9" will occur.

After Jony Ive left Apple and started his own company, Evans Hankey took on the design responsibility. When he first took office, he made drastic changes and changed the TouchBar on the Macbook back to a button.

This move was widely praised and was seen as the beginning of Apple's design philosophy truly returning to the path of "functionality" over "design."

But not long after, Evans Hankey also left Apple.

Since Jony Ive left in 2019, Apple's design team has undergone frequent personnel changes and the design concept has changed many times.

The Action button on the iPhone 15 Pro series is the product of swinging.

Today, Molly Anderson, who has been working as a designer at Apple during the Ive era, has begun to lead Apple's design team. She was once seen as a combination of Jony Ive and Evans Hankey's design concepts, possessing both design aesthetics and productivity attributes.

Her latest work is the "thinnest ever" iPad Pro M4, which was released not long ago. Although it once stimulated the sales of the iPad series, people have mixed opinions about this "thinness".

On the iPhone, people haven’t gotten used to the iPhone 15 Pro’s Action button yet, and she’s ready to take the stage with a new camera button.

Compared to Apple's decisiveness and confidence 17 years ago, this time, Apple seems to be still hesitating between "design" and "practicality".