It looks like one of the biggest design changes in this year’s iPhone update has been undone. In a post today on Medium, respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that Apple no longer plans to use a solid-state button design on the iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max.
“My latest investigation indicates that due to unresolved technical issues prior to mass production, the two high-end iPhone 15 Pro models (Pro and Pro Max) will abandon the closely watched solid-state button design,” he wrote, “going back to traditional physics. button design.
As early as October 2022, rumors suggested that late 2023 Pro versions of iPhones had solid power and volume buttons, and the theory was widely accepted as fact until this spring. (We discussed their potential implications in a cost-benefit analysis last month, for example.) In fact, it was Koo himself who originally spread the rumor, but with the inclusion of the classic word of warning ” can “.
In other words, the buttons won’t actually depress, but instead use a haptic mechanism to mimic the feeling of a click in response to pressure and skin contact. This approach appears to be difficult to implement.
Apple did something similar in 2016 when it launched the iPhone 7 with a hard home button. The idea was that dropping a moving part reduced the risk of mechanical problems: in previous iterations, the Home button was one of the most failure-prone parts of the iPhone. But the new design wasn’t universally loved either; We called it “weird” and “weird” back then, and its inability to work with non-capacitive gloves was an issue with the iPhone SE.
On top of that, using a flat design on the power button, in particular, is a little trickier than the home button. Such designs need strength; If you turn off one of Apple’s recent MacBooks, for example, trying to press on a solid-state trackpad is like pressing on a flat, unresponsive aluminum slab. However, the power button obviously needs to be able to do its job when the iPhone is locked.
It is unclear if this was the “unresolved technical issue” or if the rumor started early; A cynic might note that it’s very convenient that Kuo can make headlines twice, first by starting a rumor and then by killing it. But Kuo is generally knowledgeable, and as he notes in the Medium post, there’s still time for Apple to change its mind.
The iPhone 15 Pro is currently in EVT [Engineering Validation Test] development stage, he writes, “therefore there is still time to adjust the design”.
For the latest news and rumors leading up to launch this fall, check out our regularly updated iPhone 15 Super Guide, which includes comprehensive information on the Pro models, or check out our iPhone 15 Ultra rumor roundup. If you don’t want (or can’t) wait that long, find the best current model for your needs with our iPhone buying guide.
