After months of leaks indicating Apple will ditch the physical volume and power buttons on this year’s iPhone 15 Pro in favor of fancy solid-state replacements, one of the original rumor sources now says that this does not happen.
“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 and return to the traditional physical button design,” noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote in a Average position. 9to5Mac reports Another analyst, Jeff Pu of Haitong Tech, also thinks Apple will stick with traditional mechanical buttons for the iPhone 15 Pro models.
Rumors that Apple will switch to solid-state buttons for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max appeared around October last year. At the time, Kuo predicted that Apple would switch to a solid-state solution similar to the one it used for the home button on the iPhone 8 for volume and power buttons on upcoming phones (although there’s no mention of the change coming to the non-Pro iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus). Instead of mechanical buttons, a pair of Taptic Engines would generate haptic feedback upon pressing a button. Phone renders leaked later appeared to confirm this design change.
In today’s note, Kuo doesn’t offer many details about the “unresolved technical issues” that prompted Apple to remove the feature, but does indicate that switching to simpler physical buttons at this point shouldn’t. not cause delays in phone production schedules. . Kuo notes that this isn’t good news for vendors of the solid-state button hardware, however. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t still happen in the years to come, but not for 2023.