Who needs them, anyway?
This could possibly make the iPhone more durable, but it could also make it a lot more annoying.
Taptic Touch
Apple has done this many times before.
Math / Unsplash
These trackpads had no moving parts.
Mechanical home buttons used to fail all the time, and the haptic button got rid of the problem.
Apple has since put virtual buttons into various devices.
Apple
The Apple Watchs Digital Crown, the squeezy-shaft button on the AirPods Pro, and so on.
The Taptic Engine also provides vibration alerts and tactile keyboard feedback on the iPhone.
Better Without Buttons
The biggest advantage of a virtual button with a Taptic click is durability.
Lifewire / Charlie Sorrel
I had trouble with most of my MacBook trackpads over the years until the Force Touch version replaced them.
With a virtual button, there are no moving parts to break.
Take the volume control on the new AirPods Pro 2.
That would be pretty neat.
Apple
But there are downsides, too.
The biggest is that a virtual switch must have some kind of software loaded to recognize your button press.
The iPhone 7replaced that methodby holding the volume down and sleep/wake buttons.
Imagine that dance if there are no physical buttons left to press.
Its easy to locate the volume buttons by sight and touch.
you’re able to also use them to orient the iPhone in the dark.
This is important for accessibility as well as usability.
It will be interesting to see how Apple solves these problems.
