There had been plenty of reason to expect that Apple would give the iPhone 15 Pro all-new solid-state volume and power buttons when the phone is announced later this year, but that now seems not to be happening after all. But don’t worry, those fancy buttons will arrive soon enough.
How soon? According to one report, they’ll be ready for 2024 which means that the iPhone 16 Pro is the model that we should all keep our eyes peeled for.
The new buttons will do away with the standard clicky setup that we’re all so familiar with, but it now looks increasingly likely that we’ll need to wait for the best iPhone of 2024 before we get to test them out.
A longer wait
Talk of solid-state buttons has been around for months but it’s thought that Apple ultimately decided that it just wasn’t ready to use them just yet. The theory was that Apple would use vibration motors to simulate a click, but the company tasked with building the hardware to make that happen has already hinted that it isn’t going to be making anything in 2023.
Now, Bloomberg’s (opens in new tab) Mark Gurman has backed that up, saying that Apple has chosen to hang fire until the iPhone 16 Pro so that it can deal with the costs and complexity related to the technology. Gurman was responding to a question about the iPhone 15 Pro with MacRumors (opens in new tab) reporting on his thoughts.
That doesn’t mean that the iPhone 15 Pro will be lacking in new stuff for people to enjoy, though. We’re still expecting a new Action button to replace the mute switch, giving people Apple Watch Ultra-like levels of customization and automation.
Apple isn’t expected to announce the iPhone 15 lineup until September, with the phones expected to go on sale a week or so later.
