Capacitive Buttons On iPhone 16 In Rumors

There are some rumors about innovations for the upcoming iPhone series that keep repeating themselves. This includes the assumption that Apple will replace the mechanical buttons on the iPhone with capacitive buttons.

Apple is now said to have awarded the contract

Now a new report says that Apple has selected a supplier to produce exactly these components. Lately, the rumor mill has been quiet about the topic of capacitive buttons.

It was already said in 2023 that capacitive buttons would replace all mechanical buttons on the iPhone 15 series, but that didn’t happen. Apple is said not to have buried the plans, but only postponed them. The Economic Daily report claims that Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE) has received a major order for the device. This supplier company is a long-standing partner of Apple.

It is now rumored that the technology will finally replace all buttons in the iPhone 16 family.

Economic Daily has a good track record of getting details from Apple suppliers, at least when it comes to contracting. The conclusions drawn from this – in this case that all mechanical buttons on all iPhone 16 models will be replaced – were not always correct.

More details

But there are more details about this. The report states that there will be two Taptic Engine motors that will provide vibration feedback to the user when they “press” a capacitive button. This should work similarly to a “click” on Apple’s Magic Trackpad. However, production is not expected to go into mass production until the third quarter, which sounds a bit late for the iPhone 16, but would be possible.

Project Nova and Atlas

The “Capture Button” for the iPhone 16 will be called “Project Nova” internally, while the capacitive conversion of the action button will be called “Project Atlas.” The earlier – and perhaps current – “Project Bongo” referred to the use of capacitive keys for the remaining keys.