HI everyone,
I have assigned the action button on my iPhone 16 Pro Max to voice memos. I'm using IOS 26.5.2 (soon to be using 26.6). The phone is locked. There you have my starting point.
I press the action button. voiceover says: hold to record. Half an hour later, I'm still holding to record but it ain't recording! It will work if I hold to record having unlocked the phone. It also seems to work if I have launched the Voice Memos app in the conventional way beforehand. But I thought the whole joy of this thing was that it was as easy as pressing the action button on the lock screen without worrying about having made preparations previously? Am I wrong? What am I doing wrong? Can someone help me out please? I am examining would-be barristers (trial attorneys) next week and am hoping to use Voice Memos for the backup recordings of the exams, but I won't be able to do that unless I know what I'm doing is working.
Also, I thought you could use other apps while recorrding and Voice Memos wouldn't record Voiceover chatting away to you. Well, it records Voiceover chatting away to me. Again, am I being a fool here?
I cannot tell you how great is my anticipation of your replies.
Comments
Advice
Set up a VoiceOver gesture with the Voice Memos shortcut. This will involve you going to Settings, Accessibility, VoiceOver, Commands, All Commands, Shortcuts. Note that Shortcuts will be at the very bottom of this list. Double tap on Shortcuts and then find the Voice Memos shortcut.
Once you have assigned that gesture, go back to your lockscreen, activate your VoiceOver gesture, and see if you can record a memo.
Obviously, this is not ideal, but it serves a purpose.. I promise.
If the VoiceOver gesture works, and you're able to record a voice memo while on your lock screen, it will tell you that the control for the action button is not designed to work on the lockscreen.
If it does not work on the lockscreen, then it is a possibility that it is an iOS issue.
HTH. 🙂
thanks Brian
I appreciate the spirit of this. But to clarify, I thought the action button worked even when the screen was locked. Self-evidently, a Voiceover gesture is not going to work if the screen is locked. I'm only mentioning this so folk understand that my question is about whether the action button is meant to work when the screen is locked, not whether it is meant to work on the lock screen but with the screen unlocked.
Clarification
The reason why I suggested the steps above, is because if you can get it to work with a VoiceOver gesture, you can use the shortcut option in the action button menu, to get the exact same result you're trying to get by using the dedicated voice memo option, again within the action button menu settings. In other words, go to the action button settings, and instead of choosing voice memos, choose shortcut. Then choose your voice memos shortcut, or find one of the plethora of voice memo shortcuts on the Interwebs, and use that. When you activate your action button, you'll be able to record, just like you want to. Consider this a workaround, assuming of course that the VoiceOver gesture does indeed work when the screen is locked, because if it does not, then this whole thing will be a moot point.
You can actually test this, by assigning the gesture to one of the back tap options. Those may work with the device locked.
If the action button function, and the VoiceOver gesture does not work with the screen locked, even using the back tap option, then it is likely a limitation of iOS. 🙁
Thanks again
Now I understand your suggestion. apologies - I was being a bit slow earlier as looking back, your initial explanation was clear. Given I can't afford to risk not capturing advocacy performances, I think I'll just use a Victor Reader stream 3 next week, but I'll have a go at your suggestion in the medium-term; and, of course, I am still interested in whether the action button is supposed to start recording in Voice Memos with the screen locked. Here we have the answer to the perennial blindness question: why bother with a stream when your iPhone can do it all? Answer, because accidents are far less likely with dear old tactile buttons.