20th anniversary iPhone with no ‘real’ buttons?
Rumors suggest Apple will replace all buttons on the iPhone 20 with haptic feedback.
Here’s a question you’ve probably never considered before: Would you buy a new iPhone if it didn’t have physical buttons?
Sure, the most used part of your phone is the touchscreen, so it might not seem like a big deal. But think about it: the side button, volume buttons, action button, and camera shutter button would no longer click. Could you live without all that clutter?
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While Apple doesn’t sell such an iPhone and likely won’t release one next year, it could release a buttonless iPhone in 2027 – at least physically without buttons. That year will mark the 20th anniversary of the iPhone, and it’s no surprise that rumors suggest Apple is planning something special for the iPhone 20. And that something could include ditching all mechanical buttons and replacing them with haptic ones.
A “buttonless” iPhone
If you’ve had an iPhone 7 or iPhone 8, you’ll understand the idea. On those iPhones, the mechanical Home button was replaced with a solid-state haptic button. Essentially, Apple used smart haptic vibrations to create the illusion of a button press, but in reality, the “button” doesn’t move at all.
You’ll understand this if your phone is completely turned off: The Home button, once pressed, doesn’t actually do anything. The same goes for any MacBook released in the past decade: your trackpad isn’t actually a button, so when the computer is off, the glass doesn’t move.
The claim that the iPhone 20 will replace all buttons with this type of technology comes from leaker Instant Digital, who previously claimed that Apple is planning to create a button-less iPhone.
Previously, Instant Digital had only confirmed vague Apple plans for such a phone in the future, but this week the leaker was more specific: In a Weibo post, Instant Digital said that Apple has “completed the functional verification of these tactile buttons” and plans to “mass-produce and apply” them with the iPhone 20. All buttons, from the side button to the camera control buttons, will use this technology.
Interestingly, Instant Digital claims that Apple will fill this gap by simplifying the camera button structure for next year’s iPhone 18. Apple could remove the capacitive sensing layer from the button and leave it with just pressure sensitivity. It remains to be seen whether these and other rumors bear this out.
I think Apple will have a solution, but it’s not clear yet what it will be, but we’ll definitely wait and see.
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