> The new micro-processor that will ship in the 15 Pro models will not only manage those tasks, but will also be able to immediately sense capacitive button presses, holds, and even detect their own version of 3D Touch with the new volume up/down button, action (currently ringer switch) button, and power button, while the phone is dead or powered down.

If the new button is gonna act like the AW Ultra’s action button and I can map shortcuts to it I would be so happy.

Leave it to Apple to over engineer and over complicate an already existing feature lol

Looks like it’ll enable really cool features at least!

Apple: “Best I can do is spy on you”

I’m so hyped for the new one! I’m instantly gonna switch

Except it's Apple not Google.

Don’t you mean switch capacitive press

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USB C coming? 🤔

lets complicate something that works perfectly fine right now and charge premium for useless stuff

Your face seems to be the problem here

I’m convinced the problem some people have with Face ID is caused by the way they set it up.

When I set my Face ID up I held the phone down low where I would naturally hold it while using it.

I’ve seen people hold the phone directly out in front of them while setting up their Face ID and it causes the shape of their face to look different.

Very fancy but extra, but fancy. But. Extra.

I seen this same guy leak some of the dynamic island features last year

Caseowner like this "feature"

The biggest issue is people don’t know how to train it and actively work against its learning abilities. If you try to unlock and FaceID fails, DO NOT relock the phone and try it again in a more ideal position.

When FaceID has enough info that it thinks it’s you but not enough to authenticate you properly, if you authenticate with the passcode immediately after it fails it will add that data to the algorithm so it’s more likely to identify you in the future.

> Face ID will also update this data when it detects a close match but a passcode is subsequently entered to unlock the device.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108

You can even rapidly train for certain angles or whatever by doing a FaceID unlock -> fail -> unlock with passcode -> lock and repeat until it recognises you.

I pretty much never have FaceID fail to authenticate unless the sensor is covered by something.

Except it doesn't matter and if you believe Apple is not spying on you as much as anybody else you are just naive.

Edit: there are four antitrust lawsuits in relation to privacy against them. One of those lawsuits is exactly related to the fact they kept tracking you, despite whether you've opted out. I wouldn't exactly call them the bastion of privacy.

Edit 2: their advertising revenue basically tripled from 2020 to 2021. And you certainly don't do that by not tracking people. They want you to think they give a shit about privacy. They do not. They care about money, and currently the money is in advertising. How do you see Google taking the major cut in the advertising pie without Apple's participation? If you still don't believe me they track you as much as Google - simply read their terms and conditions. Quite the read.

Don’t you mean capacitive press?

The sad state of buttons disappearing everywhere. What a terrible trend!

I wonder if they want to change to this solution to add some cool new functionality. Maybe you can swipe your thumb on the volume ‘rocker’ to scroll or something else.

Damn! What a solution looking for problem looks like.

I like turning the volume up and down with my phone in my jeans pocket or snoozing without opening my eyes when my alarm goes off.

That’s a hard pass for me.

This all makes a lot of sense. Reading the post it is just replacing the low power mode on the existing processor with a separate even lower draw one to handle the emergency functions like “find my” and Apple Pay with a dedicated chip. Makes sense.

Considering how apple handled the solid state home button and track pads I have faith solid state volume buttons will be fine. Less movement introduces fewer points of failure too. In theory.

Will there be any difference between the pro and pro max? Don’t want to get the big one haha

Awesome. So when this chip breaks you can't use your phone and buttons anymore. Not user replaceable and probably need special Apple software and machines to "calibrate" it.

I like glancing at the side my phone just before walking into a meeting to ensure the switch is silent.

I, too, will miss the physical buttons & switch.

It’s been long confirmed that the iPhone 15 will have USB C

You’re right and people refuse to believe it. Of course Apple is going to try and make more money by tracking you for ads, what are you going to do? Move to windows? Switch to a Pixel tablet? Apple products are the best quality there is, they can track you and push ads and it’ll still be so much better than the competition

skill issue

As I understand it a price increase is expected with the "Pro"/"Ultra" models? So they'd want stuff like this to make the phone feel more exclusive/premium I guess.

Fine by me, what I'm more interested in is whether the standard iPhone 15 will finally be a decent phone again. The non-Pro iPhone 14 feels so gimped with its 60 Hz screen, non-autofocus ultrawide lens (for "macro photos") etc. Let's hope we get a good phone at that lower (but not low, especially in Europe) price point.

My hope is that features like the one mentioned here will set the Pro version apart as opposed to purposefully gimping the standard model.

> Of course Apple is going to try and make more money by tracking you for ads, what are you going to do?

The only thing I can do. Try and show people, that Apple isn't somehow their friend or that they care about privacy.

> Apple products are the best quality there is, they can track you and push ads and it’ll still be so much better than the competition

I mean, that's very subjective and if you like them that's great. For me they aren't really the best at anything, except mayyyybeeee tablets, so obviously I've gone with the competition, but it is important to keep companies accountable for their actions and not blindly believe their marketing. Regardless of which company we are talking about.

Yeah don’t know why you’re being downvoted. Apple might not be the worst in terms of privacy, but they’re definitely not great. It’s all marketing.

> Yeah don’t know why you’re being downvoted.

I can understand it. For a long time people have believed Apple cares about their privacy, at least based on their marketing material, and suddenly hearing that's not actually true... Is kinda shitty.

I too would've been pissed if I bought something based on the promise of privacy and later on to realize that's actually a lie.

How are capacitive buttons going to work with cases? Just a bunch of holes? Hate it. Fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.

The same goes for any chip on the phone. Silicon reliability is much higher than button reliability though.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but don't all iPhone's currently have "always-on micro-processors" to detect things like power button presses, lightning port connections, and find my iPhone?

Their code is all closed-source, so it's not confirmed if they're really spying on you or not. You're just trusting their marketing.

The chances of this chip breaking is as low as the SoC itself breaking

Unconfirmed, but the differences would only be the battery and screen sizes

Nothing is confirmed as apple never confirms anything until their keynote presentations.

I'll probably skip this generation. Maybe wait until the 16 or 17. I like my 13 Pro and there is no reason to upgrade.

Unnecessary complication and a solution in search of a problem.

You are right, knowing Apple it will be a port that is usb compatible, but faster if you use an Apple cord that doesn’t come with the phone. Maybe it will be magnetic and use it’s own microprocessor. Who knows…. But it won’t just be a simple usb.

persistence even when powered off. and we thought hackers are bad guys.

It is always good to be aware and make others aware of how companies progress, but my point is that even if apple did push their advertisments further into inconvenient areas, (which they haven’t yet) most people would still buy Apple products because of their simplicity and quality.

A good example of this is the haptic trackpad, which if you want on windows laptops you have to pay thousands, and in terms of battery life on macs they are unbeatable. Even if Apple pushed iCloud and other services more and more, I wouldn’t really have a choice as Apple products are still some of the most quality products and you just can’t compare any windows laptop to the MacBook air for example

This is really funny especially when taken out of context.

Closed source code or not there are still many ways to check network traffic and other information that would give you a solid clue as to how much Apple spies on you relative to others.

Data exchange in network traffic is usually encrypted. If they really tried, it could also be obfuscated in other ways, so there's no real way to know if they're really spying or not.

You can only fully trust it if the OS and its relevant application components are open source. so that you exactly know what it does.

Only if they would bring 3D Touch back. Not this crap

Correction: You can only fully trust it if the entire stack from hardware, drivers, firmware, kernel, OS and applications running on the OS are open source, you have assembled all of them yourself, and read through the entire source code.

It seems like a lot of you people lose a ton of time trying to prevent companies from seeing you go to pornhub. I’m all for easy steps like turning off tracking settings and using a VPN, but the security obsession some people have really misses the ball on what actually matters.

I actually like it everywhere outside of vehicles. Touchscreens in cars is a safety hazard and not beneficial in any way. Other places reducing moving parts as much as possible is a good thing.

This doesn’t make any sense. The chip breaking is much less likely than a physical button breaking (which 90% of people take to apple anyways). It’s the same chance that your actual phone chip stops working.

Whoops 😬🤣

This is dumb, phones processors already have a low power mode for critical functions. A separate chip that only operates those functions is more secure if anything.

I wish I still had my 7

That would be great actually. I know people love the physical ringer mute button, but thinking about it, I switched mine to off when I got my first iPhone in 2017, and have not once wanted it to be on since. I would be 100% fine with this being a software toggle and having a more useful physical button that can be mapped to other things.

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> most people would still buy Apple products.

I have absolutely no doubt about that

We now have a physical camera button.

Bro I can look at my phone wearing sunglasses while upside down from Ohio and Face ID still works

Apple confirmed it in 2022 you can search engine it

“We have no choice” was their response to the EU mandating usb c. This does not mean they have to do it this year as it is mandatory in 2024 which means the iphone 15 could still have no usb c. Although I don’t think they will take that route. Knowing apple they might just not give a port at all and go full wireless 😆.

You get better feedback from real buttons. There's a reason you don't use a touchscreen for your real keyboard on a PC/laptop

I swear you're trying to tap something on the screen and your arm moves so much because of the road

yes, its called piezoelectricity and has been a thing for decades. wow apple, such innovation.

Car manufacturers are already bringing them back after all the negative feedback from customers.

It’ll make cases more expensive as they’ll have to redesign buttons/functionality. Likely we will see nice cases that are very expensive, and the usual cases just feature cutouts. Then there will be some that just forego the whole thing and you’ll have to change volume via software

I was excited to finally move everything to USB-C this year but the more I read about this phone the more I want to wait a year and see what the next one looks like. Also to give this one some time to prove itself.

Idk the MacBook trackpad haptic feedback is pretty fricken good at simulating clicks. I think that typing is an area you want feedback, but most things that you are looking at when you do them do not need tactile feedback, and to the extent they do haptics work fine.

You could always use the volume buttons to take pictures though.

there isnt ever when a phone is one (two!) years old

They have to redesign cases every year. Already plenty with open buttons

You look at your volume buttons when you press them?

No I look at the screen or can hear the change in volume though, I don’t need tactile feedback for that. People were also pissed when they got rid of the home button but that was obviously (in my opinion) a very good move.

It sounds kinda bad tbh

As someone who’s switch is permanently on the red mode, if I can just do that via software and have the button for other things that would be amazing

Yeah but now you can bring up the camera from anywhere is what I’m saying.

I just picked up my 14p this past Saturday. First iPhone ever. I’m loving it! It will be many years before I need to upgrade, hopefully

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I wasn’t super thrilled, but willing to see it in practice before saying no, however if today’s rumor that a new haptic engine in place of the SIM tray means a return to 3D Touch I am all in. Haptics could credibly replace the tactile feedback of the current hardware mute switch.

Once you flush the physical buttons and make the frame responsive to touch you open up a whole world of new interaction models. Side frame to scroll. Side frame double tap to enable “reach ability” (the triple back tap is meh). Slide to confirm purchases with Apple. Squeeze the phone to take a photo (I know Android has had squeeze for a while)

Yeah I’m in the same boat. I use the mute switch one time when I get my phone and then never again. I could think of plenty of other things it would be great for instead. Even better if we can map it to a shortcut… but that might be too wishful of thinking

It’ll probably feel the exact same after a while, especially if everything is haptic.

NSA is an advertised feature now 😂

I’m rocking my 11 until it blows up or dies

That’s a solution for an unnecessary problem

It’s not about whether you talk on the phone, it’s about whether you like loud phone ringer / notification noises. I hate the constant chirps and beeps of someone’s unsilenced phone, including my own, even when I’m alone.

Vibrate works great, or better yet, my Apple Watch lets me know immediately when my phone is ringing. No audible noises required.

I can see the conspiracy theories now.

So a micro microprocessor?

Hmmm I hate capacitive buttons at least the way it’s been implemented so far. Doesn’t even seem like much of an innovation. Question is benefit of usb c vs negative of capacitive button worth it? Or wait until they sort things out (or get rid of it) aka MacBook Pro Touch Bar.

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No it won’t. It’s the same shit like touch buttons on cars.

The problem is I never had to worry or think about "training" my TouchID, and I never had to worry about my thumb having different glasses, different hairstyles, different masks, etc.

It's very very very far from "just works" when we have to consider and micromanage Apple's implementation details.

The dichotomy of man is truly fascinating, cuz you then have someone like me, who has a custom ringtone and custom text tone that I unmute my phone for anywhere that’s not a customarily quiet setting.

Of all the fucking places they should not disappear from is in cars…

It’s a feature desperately missing on iPhones. I’m always mad when I just can’t bring up the camera by clicking the power button twice like on any android I’ve had my hand in yet.

so normal 15 will keep current buttons and switch?

All I care for is 3D Touch. 🙏🏼

Have you used a Mac trackpad in the last decade?

Yes. I don’t care. I can’t feel where the button is which is the problem, not the clickiness.

Nobody is saying that the capacitive buttons won’t be tactile though.

What happens when you forget your charger on a 2 week trip and come back to a flat battery and the microprocessor aint microprocessing?

Counterpoint: my elderly mother cannot use Touch ID. The wrinkling and loose skin on her hands means that Touch ID simply cannot last more than a few hours for her. She’ll train it, then it’ll work once or twice and never again. This persisted for several devices in a row.

With Face ID, she has no issues. Trained once, and it just works. She has to use her passcode about once a week now.

Oh yeah! I don't discredit that. For a lot of people, face recognition works better than fingerprint recognition, and vice versa.

With people saying things like "Your face seems to be the problem here" or "people don’t know how to train it and actively work against its learning abilities", I feel like I need to add my two cents. Fingerprint recognition works far far better for me

This is all in the name of waterproofing, so I'm all for it

This is all in the name of waterproofing, so I'm all for it.

One word: waterproofing.

I honestly like when apple maintains both designs. Would you like a fingerprint scanner or a face scanner? Choose your form factor. The only possible improvement would be to offer both in one package, but they’d have to adopt <10 year old concepts to do that. I’m not fussy, you’re fussy

They’re already waterproof.

I'd love if they had a fingerprint scanner on the back like Google Pixel phones used to have. Bonus point is it would make the larger phones much easier to hold 8)

But Apple will still leave *two* ways to launch the camera on the home screen, one of witch is the same gesture as dismissing a notification. SMH

All you need to do is punch in the passcode when it can’t unlock with you and it will get better over time. That’s literally all you need to do.

It is not getting better over time for me. I'll have entire days where Apple's face recognition does not work once. It's even worse when you have a long passcode.

Why are there so many people here who can not believe that FaceID does not work for some people?

They def designed this with that in mind. They design these things so an 80yr old can understand them.

“This phone will always track you”

I'm the opposite, lol. I'm honestly more annoyed at the buzzing sound someone's phone is making when laid on a table.

Just make the Apple logo on the back TouchID, like how Linus has been suggesting it for years now.

Sounds awful from a usability standpoint. What if you're using your phone with gloves? What if you use your phone with a case? What if you drop your phone on the side with all the capacitive buttons?

Yeah Id love this

Do you have a source for that?

That’s horrible! An always-on security vulnerability. You can’t even pull the battery to make it really-truly off.

A hacker’s wet dream.

And by hacker, I include our government. They’ll love being able to eavesdrop using our “powered-off” phones, 24/7/365.

It’s an accelerator like contextual menus or keyboard shortcuts. They don’t replace primary interaction they augment it.

> What if you’re using your phone with gloves?

Same thing that happens now when using the phone with gloves. Nothing unless they have a conductive material in the fabric

> What if you use your phone with a case?

Apple has to solve that problem anyway for the buttons. Cutouts that expose the frame? A case material that allows for pass-through conductivity.

> What if you drop your phone on the side with all the capacitive buttons?

Capacitive touch requires some some material that conducts electricity to close the loop. Unless your phone dropped on a conductive material like water nothing would happen.

I love them for it

Why the hell would consumers want that? It sounds like more problems not a feature

>Ohio

🤢

This new technology rumored for the upcoming iPhone models sounds like it could bring a lot of added convenience and functionality to users. I'm intrigued to see how Apple will implement it and what other surprises they might have in store

find my iphone does nothing if powered off

It’s a feature of newer phones. Check it out

They really think we’re gonna love it.

It's already waterproof. In fact, an iPhone was lost in the sea for 8 months, and powered on after it was recovered.

Makes sense that most cases won't be compatible, and you'll have to buy an expensive case from Apple, or get one with ugly cutouts. Brave.

Nah man wtf i use the mute switch everyday!!!

Silly. Of course they will be compatible. Have you seen how many third party cases have MagSafe? That’s a bit more of a engineering challenge than a capacitive button. There is absolutely no way there won’t be hundreds of third party options available day one which work with the buttons no problem whatsoever.

Dumb

Would be good enough if they use haptic feedback to indicate button presses.

Bzzz Bzz Bzzz Bzzz Bzzzzz your food is ready! bzzzzzzzzzzzz

Interesting….I’ve got a 12 pro still, was debating the 14 pro/pro max or waiting for the 15 pro/pro max….

Well we are already at the stage where we drop capacitive buttons. When will Apple drop charging port completely and speakers ? We need a fully glass enclosed iphone.

If you have coworkers, at least one of them hates you.

Oh don’t worry, I consider my office a customarily quiet setting. Can’t say that about a few of my coworkers though. 😒

Ha, fair enough

It's rather a teeny tiny cortex-M class micro controller. Mildly infuriated with the article's author.

Haptic button, not just capacitive on the case.

I have a 2013 and a 2015 macbook, the physical trackpad feels significantly better than the fake one on the 2015.

And you’d still be able to

You plug it into a charger until comes back online. Same as always.

Assuming these rumors are true, than the regular 15 will likely keep regular buttons at least the first years, similar to the rumor that all 15’s will use Dynamic Island this year.

Apple and other brands will undoubtedly make cases designed to work with it.

Waterproofing and the ever present quest to free up more internal space for more components.

They can also make the case buttons out of a conductive material…

Some interpretations of the “15 Ultra” rumors have it being a replacement or rebranding of the Pro Max. But you’re asking people to speculate on the difference between to models of a rumored redesign…

Or if they only put periscope zoom in the pro max. But it’s still too early to put much weight into rumors, in my opinion. We’ll see what they do when they do it. Or when iOS 17 betas start getting torn down for references, lol

They had to redesign cases anyway for the last several years due to model changes. What made you think this year would magically be different?

> get one with ugly cutouts

Or they just make them with conductive elements in the case buttons

The case doesn’t need haptics…

Capacitive is the method of registering input. Haptic is the method of feedback to the user. The case should conduct the vibration just fine unless it’s especially loose or padded for some reason.

How will they conduct haptic feedback?

FTA, there will be pressure sensitivity via the capacitive interface. I don’t think that will be easy to do and provide you with haptic feedback at the same time.

Okay. First, to be clear, do you understand the difference between capacitive and haptic? I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to know from which square we’re starting.

Already responded to your other comment first. But no that wouldn’t be difficult. Think about the screen.

If you long touch the top of the screen, there’s no Taptic Engine there. But you still feel it. The entire body of the iPhone conducts the vibration no matter where you actually touch.

The button itself needs to be capacitive to interact with the capacitive buttons. It could also just be straight up metallic with some sort of non-scratch bottom or just a thin enough plastic coating so as not to insulate the button. But the button would happily conduct the vibration of a second Taptic Engine is used as long as it’s in contact during the feedback tap. But I’m not convinced that’s actually necessary as one engine covers the entire phone for screen presses anywhere as-is.

They could certainly fit another engine in if they want to increase the strength of the haptic feedback or add more complexity, but it wouldn’t be strictly necessary. I’m more of the opinion that every cubic millimeter possible should be devoted to battery gains.

Yes.

Conductive - transfer the signal from your finger without a physical button.

Haptic - vibration feedback from the haptic/taptic engine, so that you can feel that something has happened, similar to the clicking of a physical button.

If there is a button cover on the case, it may be easy to make it conductive to transfer the signal, but how can they also transfer the haptic vibration to your finger? Maybe it's possible, but it feels like added complexity for very few positive reasons.

> how can they also transfer the haptic vibration to your finger?

Per the other reply, it doesn’t have to go directly to the finger. The entire iPhone conducts the vibration from wherever Taptic Engine(s) lives. The same way you can feel the haptics when you touch the top of the screen even though the engine is at the bottom of the iPhone.

Yeah, good luck feeling it through a bulky case like an Otterbox. I guess we will see.

If Otterbox cases stopped people feeling the haptics from screen touches, I think we’d be seeing the complaints. Or else the people using Otterboxes aren’t bothered by not feeling them.

Otterbox cases don't have a thick rubber bumper on the screen surface itself.

I bet you could feel it. It would be an r/MildlyInteresting experiment to have someone touch the screen while you held it.

Not iPhone Ultra this year?