Apple is a company well known for the design of its products, which is extremely careful down to the smallest detail. And that’s a double-edged sword, because deciding to change those details can be something that takes months of meetings and experiments. But it seems that this is what will happen with the iPhone 15.
Various sources have relied on the renders of the iPhone 15 that we saw two weeks ago to discover another detail: it seems that the volume buttons that we have on the side will become a single button. It would be the first time we would see something like this on the iPhone.
Almost 100% sure that the iPhone 15 Pro will LONG Unified Volume button, rather than 2 separate ones.
While making our iPhone 15 Pro Concept, we’ve found that Apple uses 2 pins on each of the 2 volume buttons. The iPhone 15 Pro CAD only shows 2 pins on a longer volume button. pic.twitter.com/KzkpS9fYBB
—Daniel (@ZONEofTECH) March 2, 2023
The detail has been discovered because in the renderings (supposedly based on real data), we went from seeing two buttons with a lower “pin” each to a longer button with two pins at each end. That translates to press one end of that button to increase the volume and the other end to decrease it.
This clashes with other rumors: haptic button leaks should not have these types of pins on the bottom of the buttons: what they should have are taptic motors that “tremble” under the pressure of our fingers to simulate the mechanism of a button. Although it may well be that the haptic buttons are reserved for the iPhone 15 Pro. The source of the tweet thinks otherwise, but let’s remember that we are still talking about rumors.
It may seem like a joke, but going from two buttons to one is not has several implications. There are fewer parts, ergo it is less manufacturing cost. And if there is a saving in internal space thanks to needing fewer parts, we may even gain a little more autonomy. These are important effects hidden in a very small change. And who knows, maybe at the design level seeing fewer buttons on the sides helps the iPhone to have a more simplified look.
Image | Arun Prakash