The Future of iPhone: The Elimination of Physical Buttons
Apple’s upcoming premium models, the iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 15 Ultra, are rumored to eliminate physical buttons to be replaced with capacitive buttons that provide haptic feedback instead of an actual “click.”
A Design Shift: A Single Capacitive Volume Rocker Button
Recently, YouTuber ZoneOfTech reported that the layout of the buttons on the top-tier iPhones might change, specifically the volume buttons. So far, previous iPhone models have all featured two hardware pins on each volume button, meaning four in total for the two volume buttons, but the iPhone 15 Pro/Ultra CAD files only show two pins where the volume buttons would normally be, which essentially means that there will be a single solid-state button. This one will likely be intuitive to seasoned phone users: holding the top part of the solid-state volume rocker will amp up the volume, while pressing (and likely holding) the bottom part will shh things down.
The Implications
Although this design change might go down well with regular iPhone users, there are some possible issues that immediately pop up. It would be interesting to see how faulty iPhones would go into recovery (DFU) mode, which currently requires interacting with both the volume down and power buttons. What’s even more interesting, however, is how case-makers will adapt to the design change should the new keys require physical touch contact.
Goodbye Hardware Mute Switch: A Capacitive Button In Its Place
ZoneOfTech is also convinced that Apple will be ditching the hardware mute switch for a capacitive button as well. Pressing this one will switch silent mode on and off, and iPhone users would be able to invoke different iOS Focus states by interacting with this solid-state mute switch.
The Solution: New Taptic Engines inside the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra
In order to make up for the lack of hardware clicks, Apple is reportedly considering adding at least a pair of two new Taptic Engines inside the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Ultra, which would aim to mimic the feel of a regular volume button. This change, combined with the rumored titanium design, Apple A17 Bionic chipset built on the 3nm manufacturing node, and a USB Type-C port as well as a new periscope camera system, makes Apple’s next premium models quite intriguing.
Conclusion
This design change will bring the iPhone 15 premium models more in line with the very first iPhones launched prior to the iPhone 4, like the original iPhone and the iPhone 3GS, which all had unified volume rocker buttons for changing the phone volume. Although this change might not affect the ordinary iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus, it certainly has the potential to transform the layout of buttons in the future.
