After months of leaks saying Apple would be ditching the volume and power buttons on this year’s iPhone 15 Pro in favor of fancy solid-state alternatives, one of the original sources of the rumor now says that hasn’t happened.
“My latest survey indicates that due to unresolved technical issues before mass production, both high-end iPhone 15 Pro models (Pro & Pro Max) will abandon the closely watched solid-state button design and return to the traditional physical button design, Well-known Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo wrote in a post Medium post. 9to5Mac reports Another analyst, Jeff Bo of Haitong Tech, also believes that Apple will stick to the traditional mechanical buttons for the iPhone 15 Pro models.
Rumors that Apple would switch to solid-state buttons for the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max surfaced in October last year. At the time, Kuo expected Apple to switch to a solid-state solution similar to what it uses for the home button on the iPhone 8 for the volume and power buttons on upcoming phones (although there was no mention of the upcoming change on the non-Pro iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus). Instead of mechanical buttons, a pair of Taptic Actuators can generate haptic feedback when a button is pressed. Later makes the phone leaked Seems to confirm this change in design.
In today’s note, Kuo doesn’t provide many details about the “unresolved technical issues” that prompted Apple to remove the feature, but he does say that switching to simpler physical buttons at this point shouldn’t lead to any delays in the phones’ production schedules. It’s not a good thing for solid-state button hardware suppliers, Kuo notes. This does not mean that it cannot happen in the coming years, but not in 2023.
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