An iPhone without buttons will have to wait

In October of last year, we first learned about Apple’s plans to replace physical buttons with haptic controls on the iPhone 15, a rumor that was reinforced in late February by a new leak that pointed to this. So a month ago, when compiling all the news that can come from the hands of the new generation, we included this radical change in it, although we outlined the very thing that it is a very significant change and therefore may not be to everyone’s liking.

In Apple, however, and due to information leaks they seemed quite happy with the idea. It’s not the first time they’ve taken scissors for a walk. We’ve seen it before, we’re just talking about the iPhone, with the removal of the home button and minijack headphone jack. And the truth is that both changes indicate a trend, as today it is increasingly difficult to find a smartphone from any manufacturer that has one of the two elements (much to the sadness of users who prefer wired headphones in certain circumstances).

So we were practically led to believe that the iPhone 15 Pro would mark the beginning of the end of physical volume buttons, as we can imagine that on this occasion what happened in the two cases I mentioned above would be repeated. Of course not overnight, but it would become a trend that sooner or later other manufacturers will adopt in their high-end devices. That’s how the market works, right?

However, Apple’s plans seem to have fallen by the wayside. Replacing physical buttons with haptic controls doesn’t seem like a simple thing, and according to renowned and generally accurate analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on his Medium page, Apple abandoned haptic controls on the iPhone 15 due to technical issues. Specifically, we can read (translated) the following in the mentioned publication:

“My latest research shows that due to unresolved technical issues before mass production, the two high-end models of the iPhone 15 (Pro and Pro Max) will drop the much-discussed solid-state button design and return. to the traditional physical button design.

From there, it goes on to analyze the impact of this change on the main suppliers of components needed for these controls, Cirrus Logic (exclusive driver IC supplier) and AAC Technologies, and also states that this change should not negatively affect the calendar planned for the production and distribution of the iPhone 15 Pro, because the return to physical buttons simplifies the design and production and transfers them to a much more familiar and convenient scenario for the company.

However, we can understand that this is a delay in the implementation of this technology, not a cancellation. Since we don’t know the depth of the technical issue, we can’t speculate, but hopefully it won’t be too long (in terms of generations, you know what I mean) to see Apple finally get around to a buttonless iPhone.