Apple confirms side-button support for 3rd-party assistants in Japan – 9to5Mac

A new document in Apple’s Developer blog confirms that users in Japan will be able to reassign the side button to launch third-party voice-based conversational apps, rather than Siri. Here are the details.

Exclusive to Japan (for now?)

Earlier today, we shared a few details about new code in iOS 26.2 beta 3, which shows that Apple is working on letting users replace Siri when pressing the iPhone’s side button:

There’s a new ‘SystemVoiceAssistant’ system app that seems to be related to the ability to change which assistant is triggered with the side button. Code strings mention a ‘Side Button App’ tied to these new additions.

Now, Apple has shared a new document on its Developer blog with new details, including the fact that this feature will be limited to Japan, at least for the time being:

By adopting the App Intents framework and offering App Shortcuts, you let people instantly access app functionality and integrate it with system experiences like Spotlight or App Shortcuts. For example, a person might place an App Shortcut you provide on the Action button. In Japan, people might place an action on the side button of iPhone that instantly launches your voice-based conversational app.

Apple notes that since users expect to be able to interact with the voice assistant immediately when pressing the side button, developers should “make sure to let them immediately use it by starting an audio session – for example, with AVFoundation.”

In the document, Apple also details the steps that developers should take to enable their voice-based conversational app when the user presses and holds the side button, including:

1. Add the com.apple.developer.side-button-access.allow entitlement to the .entitlements file in your app’s Xcode project. For details on adding this entitlement, see Side Button Access.
2. Create an app intent that conforms to the activate app intent schema.
3. In the app intent’s perform() implementation, navigate to the scene that provides voice-based conversational functionality and start an audio session.

Apple also posts an example that illustrates how such an app might implement the app intent, while reinforcing that the new feature’s availability will be limited to Japan.

While Apple stops short of saying that the feature will launch with iOS 26.2, it is looking increasingly likely to be the case, given the new code that was included in today’s beta.

To find Apple’s sample code, as well as more details about the new framework, follow this link.

Do you expect this feature to be made available in more countries soon? Let us know in the comments.

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