Filipe Espósito, writing last week at 9to5Mac:
9to5Mac last month revealed a first look at the design of the entire iPhone 15 lineup based on CAD files used to build the phones and also compatible accessories. But one thing that remained unclear was the layout of the volume buttons, which reportedly will be capacitive rather than physical. 9to5Mac has heard from a source that iPhone 15 Pro will have new unified volume buttons, plus a “pressing type” mute button.
According to our source, who’s familiar with making certified accessories for Apple products, the iPhone 15 Pro models will ditch the separate volume up and volume down buttons for a new single button that works both ways depending on where the user presses it.
I didn’t link to this when it came out because I couldn’t work out why I felt so weird about the idea of the iPhone’s ringer switch going away.
It hit me today: the ringer switch is one (of the ever-shrinking number) of the hardware feature of the original iPhone that is still with us today.
Since the beginning, we’ve been able to flip a switch, without looking, and know that our iPhones wouldn’t make noise. Some of us flip that switch on a new phone and never switch it back to allow sounds at all. I am thrilled to read that the functionality will continue, even if I am a little sad1 about losing part of the original iPhone design.
- I’m still not really over Apple taking a similar switch away from the iPad. In that case, Apple let you choose between the switch working as it does on the iPhone and use it as a rotation lock. It was awesome. ↩