Recent reports have hinted that the upcoming Apple iPhone 15 Pro might have a titanium frame with a rounded back. The material is more expensive than the stainless found on the brand’s recent and currently available “Pro” models. Another note from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo also claimed that Apple will switch to solid-state buttons with the iPhone 15 Pro models and also include three Taptic Engines. Turns out an Apple component supplier may have just vaguely hinted at the same thing, raising the possibility of solid-state buttons coming to the next iPhone.
As reported by MacRumours, Apple vendor Cirrus Logic confirmed in a letter to shareholders that it will continue to “engage with a strategic customer” and plans to release “a new HPMS component in smartphones the next year”.
That component could be the company’s “high-performance mixed-signal chips,” which MacRumours says include haptic drivers for the Taptic Engine in iPhone models. Another vague hint comes from Cirrus Logic CEO John Forsyth, who in a recent earnings call said such a component would hit the market in “the second half of next year.” Indeed, all of the above news from the Texas-based semiconductor company aligns nicely with the launch of the next iPhone which, according to tradition, takes place every year in September.
Kuo, in his previous report, claimed that Apple would add two of these new Taptic Motors to the left and right inner sides of next-generation iPhone models. These would provide haptic feedback similar to what was previously available by pressing the home button on the Apple iPhone 7, which also featured a button that did not physically move, but made the user feel like it was moving. be squeezed using the Taptic Motor and vibration. Apple is also expected to switch from its proprietary Lightning port to the more common Type-C port in the second half of 2023.
While the idea of a buttonless iPhone sounds exciting, Chinese smartphone maker Vivo also explored a similar idea in 2019 with a concept device called the Vivo Apex. The smartphone had no buttons or ports and relied on a technology called “Touch Sense”, which was a mix of capacitive touch and pressure sensing to get things done. A year later, Vivo followed up with a 2020 version of the Apex adding a curved-edge 3D display, which literally wrapped around the sides of the device and accompanied it with an invisible selfie camera that sat Behind the screen.
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