Supercharge Your Action Button on Apple Watch Ultra

The ultimate user experience is one where you barely notice the user interface at all. Sounds counterintuitive, right? But let’s be honest: we want our devices to do the heavy lifting with minimal input, almost like they can read our minds. Apple leverages machine learning to simplify our lives, so I'm puzzled as to why the Action Button on the Apple Watch Ultra is limited to just one action.

Let me paint a picture of my daily routine: During work hours, I primarily check my upcoming meetings. Once I’m home, I want to control my HomeKit accessories. When I’m out with my kids, I wish I could instantly capture those delightful nuggets of wisdom from my 3-year-old son. And at night, I want to turn on the flashlight to avoid bumping my head against walls while calming down the kids in the next room. The Action Button could handle all these tasks seamlessly—just press it and voilà! The catch? I can only assign it one action at a time.

Apple introduced Quick Switch in watchOS 11, which lets you press and hold the Action Button to choose from predefined options. But let’s be real: when you're in a hurry, do you have the time or focus to pick an action quickly? Quick Switch often turns out to be more distracting than helpful.

I submitted feedback to Apple ages ago, suggesting that users should be able to configure their Action Button like they do with their screen and watch face for each Focus mode. This feature makes perfect sense; it could eliminate unnecessary taps and execute the most logical action based on your current Focus mode. Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t added this feature for reasons unknown. Therefore, I decided to create my own multipurpose Action Button using Shortcuts.

I developed two options: one for tech enthusiasts who love customizing everything in their Focus modes, and another for everyday users that allows simple action selection based on the time of day. This setup means you can cover all scenarios mentioned above with just one press of the Action Button.

1) Focus-Bound Shortcut for Action Button

2) Time-Bound Shortcut for Action Button

These shortcuts identify your Focus mode or the time of day and perform the desired action using simple If statements. Just pick one of the shortcuts from the links above and add it to your Apple Watch. Then, go to Settings > Action Button, select Shortcut for the action, and finally choose the downloaded shortcut.

Please note that these shortcuts aren't plug-and-play; they require customization to fit your needs first.

The shortcuts can also be handy for regular Apple Watches if you configure one of them as a complication on your preferred watch face.

Feel free to tweak them as you wish and let me know if you find them helpful!