Would You Buy an IPhone Without Real Buttons?
Here’s a question you’ve probably never asked yourself before: would you buy a new iPhone without physical buttons? Sure, the touchscreen is the part of the phone you interact with most often, so it might not seem like a big deal. But consider this: the side button, volume buttons, action button , and camera button would no longer be pressable. Could you live without all that clutter?
While Apple doesn’t sell such an iPhone and likely won’t release one next year, the company could very well release a buttonless iPhone in 2027—at least without buttons. This year marks the iPhone’s 20th anniversary, and it’s no surprise that rumors suggest Apple is preparing something special for the “iPhone 20.” That something could include ditching all mechanical buttons and replacing them with tactile ones.
A truly buttonless iPhone
If you’ve owned an iPhone 7 or iPhone 8, you’ll know what I’m talking about. These iPhones replaced the mechanical Home button with a haptic one. Essentially, Apple used a clever haptic vibration to create the illusion of a press, but the “button” doesn’t actually move. You’ll notice this if you completely turn off the phone: the Home button, while you could press it, doesn’t actually do anything. The same thing happens with any MacBook released in the last decade: your trackpad isn’t actually a button, so when the computer is off, the glass doesn’t move.
The suggestion that all buttons in the iPhone 20 will be replaced with this technology comes from a tipster named Instant Digital , who previously claimed that Apple intends to create a buttonless iPhone. While Instant Digital had previously only vaguely confirmed Apple’s plans to create such a phone in the future, this week the tipster became more definitive:in a Weibo post, Instant Digital stated that Apple had “completed the functional verification” of these haptic buttons and plans to “mass produce and implement” them in the iPhone 20. All buttons, from the side button to the camera controls, will use this technology.
Interestingly, Instant Digital claims Apple will close this gap by simplifying the camera button design in next year’s iPhone 18. Apple may remove the capacitive touch layer from the button and leave it pressure-sensitive only. We’ll see if other rumors confirm this.
Would you buy an iPhone 20 without buttons?
With almost two years to go until the iPhone 20 launch, all rumors should be taken with a grain of salt. Apple may have big plans for this iPhone, but haptic buttons may have nothing to do with them. But let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that Apple does exactly what Instant Digital suggests. Would you buy it?
It would be a fundamentally different experience than any other iPhone, or any other smartphone for that matter. Even if you once owned an iPhone with a haptic Home button, you’ve always had physical buttons for adjusting volume, summoning Siri, or turning off the device. These sensations would be different, and using them based solely on feel would be more difficult if Apple hadn’t made each “button” physically visible.
This also calls into question how anyone can perform any hardware tasks that currently require physical buttons. After Apple removed the physical Home button, it couldn’t be used to restart the iPhone, so Apple moved that function to the volume button. But if all buttons are no longer buttons, how do you restart an iPhone if the screen stops responding? Connect it to a computer? Take it to an Apple Store? Pray? I assume Apple has a solution, but it’s unclear what it will be.
Personally, I don’t think this change will have any impact on my purchasing decision. I’m hopelessly stuck in the Apple ecosystem, so I’ll probably upgrade my iPhone as soon as it breaks. If I have a button-less iPhone by then, so be it, but I wonder if other iPhone users share this opinion. (Many of you are still mourning the loss of the headphone jack.)