According to a tweet noticed by MacRumors, the next-generation iPhone 15 Pro models may ditch their physical volume and power buttons in favor of solid-state counterparts that employ haptic feedback. The concept would be comparable to the iPhone 7’s non-physical home button, which employed vibrations to simulate a button push. It might possibly be akin to Mac trackpads, which do not move but simulate clicks using haptic technology.
This would necessitate the addition of more Taptic Engines to the ones already present in current iPhone models. “There will be Taptic Engines situated on the inside left and right sides to offer force feedback to users, making them feel as if they are tapping real buttons,” Kuo said in a tweet thread. “As a result of this design change, the number of Taptic Engines in each iPhone will grow from one to three.”
According to a 2018 rumor, Apple was preparing a similar upgrade for the Watch to boost water resistance, but it never materialized. However, it’s unclear how a buttonless design would help an iPhone, as it appears that two extra Taptic Engines would add rather than decrease complexity (the huge Taptic Engine accounts for a big portion of the Watch Ultra’s bulk).
The buttonless design and the migration to USB-C (which Apple has previously acknowledged) are two of the biggest improvements for the forthcoming iPhone Pro models, according to Kuo. Kuo is frequently correct in such predictions, but the iPhone 15 models are still a year away, so a lot may happen in the meantime.
