While everyone’s looking forward to the iPhone 15 using a USB-C port (despite having a few caveats), there’s a mixed reception about the iPhone 15 Pro series to ditch physical buttons for solid-state ones. People have a lot of questions on how these solid-state buttons on the iPhone 15 Pro will work: will it be the same as actual, physical buttons? Will they be usable even if the phone runs out of power? Will they have more functions other than controlling volume?
Well according to new rumors, these capacitive buttons on the iPhone 15 Pro series should work even when the phone’s battery is drained. This is said to be possible with the use of a dedicated low-energy microprocessor that’s dedicated to the capacitive buttons themselves. The microprocessor is sait to bring in other features to the capacitive buttons like sensing different press and hold gestures, Taptic Engine feedback, and being able to map them to do different functions (ie. Orientation lock, turn on flashlight, low power mode, and more).
If that’s not intriguing enough, the new microprocessor is said to power the NFC, Bluetooth Le, and UW chips as well even if the iPhone 15 Pro is powered off. That should set off worries about the iPhone 15 Pro series ditching more moving parts in its body—but that remains to be seen if this new approach by Apple is effective.