Apple’s iPhone 15 Might Drop All Physical Buttons In Place For ‘Taptic’ Touch
Apple may be gearing up to say goodbye to physical iPhone buttons and welcoming haptic touch as the next step for lock and volume controls.
The haptic system, or ‘Taptic’ as Apple has branded it, was first introduced on the iPhone 7. It began with the physical Home button being replaced with one that provided a vibration imitating the feel of physical control.
But, of course, that was introduced to slowly steer people away from the notion of having physical controls. Then, just over two years later, Apple introduced the iPhone X, the first iteration of its devices that used a swiping system to navigate.
Analyst Ming-chi Kuo explained in a series of tweets that this new form of handling the iPhone may only be coming to the two highest versions of the incoming iPhone 15 and that the lower renditions may still carry physical buttons with them.
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— éƒæ˜ŽéŒ¤ (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) October 28, 2022
My latest survey indicates that the volume button and power button of two high-end iPhone 15/2H23 new iPhone models may adopt a solid-state button design (similar to the home button design of iPhone 7/8/SE2 & 3) to replace the physical/mechanical button design.
With this, it is expected that the phone’s internal hardware will receive two additional Taptic engines on the left and right sides of the device.
It was initially thought that the Apple Watch would receive the Taptic touch to improve its water resistance, but it never came to the device. As such, the potential arrival of the new phones might be to increase their durability.
In the Twitter thread, Kuo also notes how this will potentially have a domino effect on the rest of the industry as Android manufacturers will fall in line with Apple and provide a similar service.
Kuo also posits that the removal of the buttons and the change to USB-C ports will be the two significant hardware changes to the new phones.
[via MacRumors and Gizmodo, Photo 123069620 © Andreistanescu | Dreamstime.com]na
