The Action Button: talk to Roma without opening it
Assign Talk to Roma and a press lands your words with your operator.
The Action Button on the side of an iPhone can be Roma's. Assign the Talk to Roma shortcut to it, and a press opens your conversation with the operator with the microphone already live, or with the keyboard up. Turn on Talk without opening Roma, and a press does not open the app at all: the Dynamic Island listens, you talk, you press the button again to send, and the operator's answer arrives as a notification.
Set it up
In the iPhone's Settings app, open Action Button, choose Shortcut, and pick Talk to Roma under Roma. The Controls list there also offers Roma's Hold to talk to Roma and Hold to create a task, the two Controls from Widgets, the Lock Screen and Controls.
In Roma, open Settings → Action Button. The preview at the top shows what a press does as the switches stand: the chat bar with the keyboard up, the chat bar with the mic live, or the island's pill.
The three settings
Mode: Voice or Text. Voice, the default, opens Roma on the conversation with the mic recording from the first frame. Text opens the same conversation with the keyboard up on the chat bar. Picking Voice is when Roma asks for the microphone.
Send after silence, shown while Mode is Voice and off until you turn it on: the take ends by itself after three seconds of silence and sends after a three-second window you can call off.
Talk without opening Roma, shown while Mode is Voice and off until you turn it on: the press is handled from the Dynamic Island, below.
A press always continues your one conversation, never a new chat, and a draft you had typed stays, with your words joining after it.
Talk without opening Roma
Press the button. The island grows into a pill with Roma's icon, a clock counting from 0:00 and the orange microphone indicator. Say what you need. Press the Action Button again, and that is the hang-up: the take stops and sends, with nothing to touch on the island. The row reads Transcribing, then Sending, then Sent, and the island goes a few seconds later. Your operator answers with the same quiet notification every unseen reply gets.
The island's own gestures work too. Press and hold it and the row opens: "Listening" over the clock, a muted X that drops the take, and a white Send pill. Tap the pill and Roma opens on the chat with the take live in the composer, where the chat's own controls take over.
With Send after silence on, the take ends on its own and the row reads "Sending in" over a countdown with the same pair: Send sends at once, the X keeps the words as a draft in the chat bar ("Not sent, kept as a draft"). A press of the Action Button during the countdown sends at once. A pocket press that caught no words reads "Nothing heard" and sends nothing. A send the service did not confirm reads "Not sent yet" and waits in the chat as its own Not sent row with a Retry.
Two things have to be true for the island to take the press: Live Activities on for Roma in the Settings app, and the microphone granted. The Action Button page's footer says so when they are not, and the press opens Roma instead. The page's own words say it in one breath: Roma listens from the Dynamic Island, say what you need and press the Action Button again to send it, and your operator answers with a notification.
Siri and the Shortcuts app
"Talk to Roma", "Ask Roma", "Quick capture in Roma" and "Capture in Roma" open the same conversation through Siri. The shortcut appears in the Shortcuts app by itself, with nothing to set up.
Questions people ask
Does the Action Button create a task or start a chat?
It sends what you said to your operator, in your conversation. The operator does what it does with anything you say: a task when you describe one, an answer when you ask something, a note when you ask for one.
Can I press it with the phone locked?
A locked phone asks for Face ID first, and then the press runs. The app's screen never shows on the lock, and with Talk without opening Roma on, the island is all you see.
Why did a press open the app even though Talk without opening Roma is on?
The island takes the press only when Mode is Voice, Roma is not already in front, the microphone is granted, Live Activities are on for Roma, and nothing else holds the microphone. Any of those missing, and the press opens Roma with the mic live, as it would with the switch off.
What is the difference between the Action Button shortcut and the Talk to Roma Control?
The Control is a button for Control Center, the Lock Screen's bottom slots and the Action Button's Controls list, and a press of it always opens Roma recording. Listening from the island without opening the app is the Talk to Roma shortcut's alone. Voice and dictation on the iPhone describes the take itself.