One Action Button, Two Behaviors: AirPods ANC Toggle (When Connected) + Silent Mode (When Not)
Turn your iPhone Action Button into a smart toggle: if AirPods are active, switch Noise Cancelling ↔ Transparency; if not, toggle Silent Mode. One Shortcut, two behaviors.
If you’ve got an iPhone with an Action Button, you’ve probably had this thought:
- When my AirPods are connected, I want the button to toggle ANC mode (Noise Cancelling ↔ Transparency).
- When they’re not connected, I want the same button to behave like a classic Silent Mode switch.
iOS Shortcuts can absolutely do this — with a small catch: Shortcuts doesn’t offer a single, perfect “AirPods currently connected” boolean you can reliably query in every setup. So the trick is to build a conditional trigger that detects playback route / audio destination and then branches.
Below is a practical, repeatable approach that works well in real life.
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Note: Install Actions app from the Store to use this and change name if the AirPods to your own in 3 places in the Shortcut.