With all signs pointing towards a Fall launch for the next series of Apple smartphones, a new iPhone 16 manufacturing report suggests that the brand might be finally ready to utilize solid-state buttons. If this is true, it marks the biggest iPhone design change in years, and we can probably expect other smartphone manufacturers to follow suit.
According to the new report from China’s Economic Daily, via TechRadar, Advanced Semiconductor Engineering has won a contract with Apple to produce capacitive components for the iPhone 16. For those who don’t know, capacitive buttons, also known as solid-state buttons, only require a touch to activate, rather than a press like a mechanical button.
We’ve heard talk of Apple attempting to employ capacitive buttons for a while now, even before the release of the iPhone 15. However, with this update, it looks like the Cupertino giant is finally ready to bring the technology to its most popular product. Still, we’re not sure whether Apple plans to replace all the buttons with capacitive alternatives, or if the iPhone 16 series might just introduce the concept by replacing the volume or power buttons before the brand goes all out in the future.
While this is all very exciting, it’s important to note that we can’t be sure of the change to solid-state buttons until Apple officially confirms it. As we’ve already said, all signs pointed towards the introduction of the technology with last year’s Apple 15 series, but that never came to fruition. Of all the possible changes, we think that replacing the silent switch is the least likely, as it’s a slightly different function to the other iPhone buttons. Still, we’ll have to wait to know for sure.
There you have it, all you need to know about the iPhone 16 manufacturing report pointing towards the introduction of capacitive buttons for this year’s new Apple smartphone. If you want to see what the big Android brands are up to, check out our Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra review and Honor Magic6 Pro review, as well as our guides to the best Samsung phones, the best Xiaomi phones, and the best Google Pixel phones.