A tipster on China’s Weibo social media site with the handle Instant Digital (via MacRumors) says that the Apple 16 series could have an extra button. To make room for this new button, the tipster says that Apple will be moving the mmWave antenna from the right side of the device to the left. Yes, we don’t how you’ll be able to deal with this massive design change, but we’re sure that you’ll be able to cope somehow.
The extra button is believed to be known inside Apple as the Capture Button although it is not clear exactly what the function of this button is. In other words, we don’t have a clue what this button will do. Apple will place it on the right side of the phone (thus causing the mmWave antenna to move as we previously mentioned) under the power button and it will be a capacitive button instead of a regular one. This means that it will respond to the touch of the user’s fingers.
The mmWave antenna will be moved under the volume buttons on the left side of the device which has us hoping that we don’t see a repeat of #Antennagate (aka the “left-handed death grip”). You might recall that when the iPhone 4 was released in 2010, the phone would drop connectivity if the bottom left corner of the device was covered by the user’s hand. Steve Jobs told iPhone 4 users that they were holding the device wrong, then tried to prove that this was an issue that affected all phones, and finally shipped free rubber bumpers to owners of the device.
The iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max are expected to sport larger screens next year
For the iPhone 4 Apple moved the antenna near the steel band that wrapped around the phone’s exterior. So when we hear that Apple is moving the mmWave antenna, we’d be a little worried except for the fact that even with a working mmWave antenna, connecting to high-band 5G signals is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Remember those flush solid-state buttons that were supposed to be on the iPhone 15 Pro models this year and weren’t? Well according to Instant Digital, the Action Button on the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Ultra/Pro Max will be solid state so there will be no need to press the button to activate the action you’ve preset on your phone. If you were hoping that the power and volume buttons would also be solid state, fuhgeddaboudit as they say in New York City. Those buttons will be physical and will stick out of the side as they always do.
We could see the iPhone 16 Pro get a Tetraprism periscope lens of its own next year with a slight hike in the screen size to 6.2 or 6.3 inches. The iPhone 16 Pro Max is expected to be hiked to a 6.9-inch display and all four phones will be powered by the A18 Pro chipset.
Let’s see. Hmm, we are only a little more than 10 months away from the iPhone 16 unveiling which gives Apple plenty of time to make changes to the 2024 iPhone line.
