iPhone 15 Pro design leak: Haptic buttons are not happening, but new Action Button is

iPhone 15 Pro rumors are in full swing as Apple seems to have walked back on one of the biggest rumored changes to its upcoming flagship.

And this latest scoop sheds some light on the whole haptic button situation.

Here is a quick recap of the saga: back in October last year, famed industry analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that Apple for the first time in iPhone history will replace the physical power and volume buttons with haptic ones. Numerous other analysts also corroborated that report, which meant that is preparing to use vibration motors instead of real physical keys, much like it does with the trackpad on Macbooks.

However, this week, Kuo reported that Apple has abruptly cancelled those plans as it has identified an issue with the haptic buttons.

One thing of that plan to overhaul the buttons, however, stays in place and that's about the so called Action Button, as reported by @Unknownz21 (via MacRumors).

This button is rumored to replace the familiar mute switch in iPhone 15 Pro models.

As the name says, the Action Button will be very much a... well, button and not a switch!

You will be able to program it so it controls the mute functionality like now, but you will also be able to program it to do something completely different like, say, launch Siri, or the camera. We still don't know what exact functionality will Apple allow us to map to that button, but chances are there will be quite a few, if not unlimited options.

Such kind of change this late in the design process is a big deal, but thankfully, Apple has been making iPhones with physical buttons for years, so it should not delay the phones.

Smartphone design in general goes through a few phases. First it starts with building a prototype (known as EP) where you settle on all the components that you will use, and then you start building the so called engineering validation test (EVT) where you use the intended materials and manufacturing process on a very low quantity production scale. Then you go to a design validation test (DVT) where rigorous testing of the design is done with things like dropping it and submerging it in water, and finally, you have the product validation test (PVT), which is the first official production run.

At this time of the year, Apple is currently already in the EVT phase where such changes are typically not made, so this is why cancelling a critical component at this stage is strange and must be forced by really unexpected circumstances.

Whatever the case, it seems that haptic buttons are delayed for at least one more year, but the Action Button will make its way to the iPhone 15 Pro.

Now, let's see if more information surfaces about what it can actually do...