Apple Watch Ultra’s Action Button got a secret upgrade with watchOS 11

Your Apple Watch Ultra's Action Button just got a tiny bit more useful.

The customizable button that's only available on the most premium Apple Watch models got a neat upgrade in the new watchOS 11 update, which came out this week.

SEE ALSO: Apple Watch Series 9 vs. SE: I tested both for 13 days

Described in a post on X (formerly Twitter) by Apple interface designer Taylor Carrigan and reported by TechRadar, you can now hold down the Action Button to switch between 11 different functions on the fly, using the Digital Crown on the Apple Watch Ultra. In other words you can change what the Action Button does without having to dig into the settings menu anymore.

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The 11 functions that you can switch between using this new feature are as follows:

• Recognize music

• Translate

• Voice Memo

• Accessibility

• Stopwatch

• Workout

• Waypoint

• Backtrack

• Torch

• Dive

• Shortcut

That's a pretty comprehensive list of things one might want to do at any given moment with their Apple Watch Ultra. Notably, the Translate app is new to watchOS with the 11 update, so that feature went from nonexistent to readily available at any moment this week.

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Other watchOS 11 features include sleep apnea notifications, a new Vitals app with health data, and some new watch faces. It's available on Apple Watch Series 6 devices and newer.