After shelving its ambitious plan to replace physical buttons with next-gen haptic ones on the iPhone 15 Pro, Apple is reportedly reviving the idea and expanding it to other products too.
According to a leak from the Chinese source Instant Digital, the tech giant has quietly restarted Project Bongo, its effort to introduce solid-state buttons that don’t physically move but mimic the sensation of a real click using advanced haptic feedback. This time, though, it’s not just the iPhone on the roadmap. Apple is allegedly exploring ways to bring this futuristic button tech to the iPad and even the Apple Watch.
Instant Digital claims that the plan was originally dropped due to the issue of frequent “mistouches,” which made the feature unreliable. However, Apple is now supposedly working on a new design that integrates the haptic controls directly into the device frame. This will deliver a tactile illusion of pressing a real button. In practical use, it could translate to tapping on your Apple Watch and having the button change function depending on your activity. Or, perhaps adjusting the volume and brightness on your iPad via sleek, touch-sensitive edges.
Apple wants these buttons to feel indistinguishable from mechanical ones, and that’s a tough goal to accomplish. Therefore, it’s unlikely that haptic buttons will debut on this year’s iPhone 17 lineup. Nonetheless, Project Bongo may reach successful culmination sooner than expected and revolutionize how users interact with smart devices.
