Apple’s Taptic Engine supplier won’t receive orders for new haptics modules desgined for the rumored solid-state buttons on the upcoming iPhone 15 Pros.
- Apple’s supplier Cirrus Logic has corroborated earlier rumors of solid-state buttons not coming to this year’s iPhone 15 Pros after all.
- The rumor-mill now expects the next year’s iPhone 16 Pros to replace moving buttons with their touch-sensitive, non-moving counterparts.
- Reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo recently said this year’s iPhones would keep regular buttons because of last-minute production challenges.
Evidence that iPhone 16 Pros will get solid-state buttons
Cirrus Logic has been supplying Apple with the iPhone’s Taptic Engine, which is a motor producing subtle vibrations and other haptic feedback.
In a shareholder letter spotted by MacRumors, Cirrus hints that a major client won’t be contributing to its revenue this year. The letter also mentions that Cirrus will produce the required component for this client in 2024.
“That said, among the HPMS opportunities we have discussed, a new product that we mentioned in previous shareholder letters as being scheduled for introduction this fall is no longer expected to come to market as planned,” it reads.
HPMS stands for the company’s high-performance, mixed-signal business that includes haptic drivers for the iPhone’s Taptic Engine. Earlier rumors said solid-state buttons would provide fake clicks via two additional Taptic Engines.
Cirrus no longer believes Apple will order additional Taptic Engines this year.
Replacing the current volume buttons, the power button and the silent switch with their capacitive, non-moving versions featuring haptic feedback (like the iPhone 7’s Home button) is thought to enable new button press combinations for restarting and new gestures in apps like Camera while boosting the iPhone’s waterproofing.
Apple is Cirrus’s biggest client
“As we have limited visibility into our customer’s future plans for this product at this time, we are removing the revenue associated with this component from our internal model.”
MacRumors says Cirrus noted in its previous shareholder letter that it would supply such parts to Apple. There’s no confusion about who this major client might be—Apple accounted for 79 percent of Cirrus’s revenue in the 2022 fiscal year.
This year’s iPhone 15 Pros might rework at least one of its buttons, the silent switch, which is thought to become a pressure-sensitive, clickable, programmable button like the orange Action button on the Apple Watch Ultra.