A fresh leak suggests Apple’s 20th-anniversary iPhone may see a button-less design.
According to rumours, Apple’s long-rumoured button-less design has reportedly reached a point where the technology is expected to feature on next year’s iPhone release.
Solid-state buttons, which replace mechanical moving parts with haptic feedback systems, have circled Apple’s roadmap since at least the iPhone 15 generation, with the company walking back the feature on two successive launches after the technology failed to meet its internal standards for precision and reliability under real-world conditions.
The current iteration has cleared those same benchmarks, according to the leaker behind the report, passing pressure-recognition tests across scenarios including gloved hands, wet fingers, and extreme temperatures, with the system also confirmed to function through Apple’s own silicone iPhone cases during evaluation.
Keeping the controls active while the device is powered down required a dedicated ultra-low-power chip, a solution that resolves what had previously been one of the most technically stubborn barriers to the feature reaching mass production on any prior iPhone generation.
The buttonless design feeds into a broader visual ambition for the anniversary model that Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has separately confirmed, describing a Glasswing display, named after the transparent-winged butterfly, that curves continuously over all four edges of the device and eliminates every conventional bezel from the handset’s profile.
That geometric shift is extensive enough to have triggered a parallel redesign of iOS 26‘s Liquid Glass interface layer, which is being rebuilt rather than adapted to ensure the software reads coherently across a display with no flat boundaries or fixed visual anchors.
Additional features cited in the leak include under-display placement for the Face ID system, selfie camera, and earpiece, alongside a tandem OLED panel, reverse wireless charging, and an upgraded Ceramic Shield cover glass, though Apple has not confirmed which elements will reach the final production design.
