iPhone Side Button Secrets Every Senior Should Know

0:00 In this video, you'll learn all about the iPhone's power button and how to make it work better for you. The power button, also known as the side button, is located on the right side of your iPhone, does more than just turn your phone on or off. You can use it to quickly lock your phone, activate Siri, and even customize how it responds when you press it. I'll show you how to adjust the buttons press speed and how to turn off certain features you may not need. Follow along and see just how handy this little button can be. If we haven't met, I'm Ellen from Ellen's Tips for iOS, where I help seniors master their iPhones and iPads. If you find the

0:45 video helpful, give it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel. Let's get started. Apple and iOS allows you to use the side button or power button to call for the Apple Lady. If you rarely use the Apple Lady in this manner or find yourself accidentally triggering her, you can remove this action from the side button. We'll go ahead and we'll open the Settings app. We'll select Apple Intelligence and Siri. Or maybe your iPhone just says Siri. If you're not updated to iOS 18 or your iPhone can't be updated, tap on that. And now we're going to select talk and type to Siri.

1:34 Once that's selected, you want to make sure that you have the toggle switch turned off next to where it says press side button for Siri. Going forward, you'll be unable to use the side button to activate the Apple lady, but you can call for her by saying, "Hey, Apple lady or just Apple lady provided you have checked these settings on the talk and type to Siri." So, as you can see above, I have those settings checked, and that's how I will access the Apple Lady. Emergency services can be called by pressing the side button five times or holding the side button with one of the

2:20 volume buttons. If you're on an older iPhone, yours may say three times. This can be disabled, though. So, if we open settings and we tap on emergency SOS, we can toggle off the switch that says call with five button presses. You'll still have access to emergency services by pressing the side button and one of your volume buttons. Let's take a look at some of the other options you have in this. You can have it call quietly. So, if I turn that option on, like there will not be any warning

3:06 alarms, flashes, or whatever uh on your iPhone once you've triggered emergency SOS, but I like to leave that option off. And you also want to have call after a a severe crash toggled on. So, those are some of the options that you have available in emergency SOS. If you're tired of hearing the iPhone play a confirmation tone when locking it, we can change that as well. Open settings, tap on sounds and haptics, and then scroll down and locate lock sound. toggle that switch off. And now when you

3:53 use the side button, your iPhone will remain silent. You can easily access your uh payment cards, transit passes, and other things that's located in the wallet app by doubleclicking on the side button. So, if I doubleclick, you'll see it takes me right into my Apple Payment. If you want to disable this feature again, we need to go back into the settings app. Once we do, locate wallet and Apple Pay and then scroll down until you see doubleclick side button. Toggle that switch off. And now

4:39 when you doubleclick, you will no longer access your wallet information. If you use the accessibility features, you can assign them an accessibility shortcut and trigger them with a triple press of the side button. So, if I triple press on the side button, you'll see that my accessibility shortcuts come up. However, if you no longer want this feature or accidentally enabled it, again, you've got to go through the settings app. So, we're going to tap on settings. We're going to tap on accessibility. We're going to scroll to the very bottom until we locate

5:25 accessibility shortcuts. And then you need to uncheck all of the accessibility shortcuts that you have enabled. And then from now on, triple pressing on the side button will no longer trigger an action. If you've ever accidentally ended a call by pressing on the side button and you weren't even aware of what you were doing because you really only wanted to wake up the screen, you can make sure that this feature is disabled because its default setting is when you hit the power button or side button, it ends the call if you're on one. So to to fix that, come into

6:13 settings, tap on accessibility, scroll down, tap on touch, and then make sure to toggle on the switch that says prevent lock to end call. And now if you're on a call and you accidentally hit the side button, the call will not be disconnected. If you have difficulty quickly double pressing or triple pressing the side button for Apple Pay or accessibility shortcut or even to download an app, you can adjust your iPhone to register these clicks at a slower speed. This can be helpful for seniors or those with health

7:01 issues who may struggle with rapid presses. So again, back into the settings app, select accessibility, scroll down, and you're going to tap on side button. And then you can check off slow or slowest and give each one of them a try and see what works best for you. As you can see, the power button on your iPhone does a whole lot more than just turn your phone on and off. With a few quick adjustments in settings, you can make it work in a way that's more comfortable and less frustrating. Whether that means avoiding accidental calls to Siri, stopping emergency alerts you didn't mean to send, or simply

7:47 slowing down the click speed. If any of these features were confusing before, I hope this video gave you the confidence to take control of your power button. Just remember, your iPhone should work for you, not the other way around. Thanks so much for watching. I'll see you next time.