Apple’s long-rumored haptic button design surfaced in a patent utility. Picture Credit score: Apple / USPTO
We might see haptic buttons on a future iPhone in any case, as Apple’s beforehand deserted Bongo venture has surfaced in a latest patent utility.
In 2022, Apple got here up with the concept of including haptic quantity and energy buttons to dearer iPhone fashions. Relative to the usual buttons used on the iPhone 14 vary, the brand new haptic buttons would have integrated a devoted haptic engine for vibration suggestions.
The change was additionally meant to facilitate a visible distinction between Apple’s base mannequin iPhones and the dearer “Professional” lineup. In April 2023, the {hardware} was abruptly faraway from the iPhone 15 Professional, and it was believed that every one work on the Bongo design had ceased. Surprisingly, nonetheless, it seems that Apple had filed a patent utility for its haptic button design.
Although it was filed in September 2023, Apple’s patent utility was solely made public in April 2025, making it the primary time Apple has acknowledged the Bongo design in any form or type. The patent submitting contains depictions and descriptions of the haptic button design, however in any other case accommodates no beforehand unknown data.
Venture Bongo, because it was identified inside Apple, made it comparatively far into growth, with totally purposeful prototypes being constructed. Even so, the Bongo design hasn’t been used on mass manufacturing variations of any iPhone to this point.
AppleInsider was the primary to indicate Apple’s haptic buttons on real-world {hardware}, within the type of an EVT-stage prototype iPhone 15 Professional Max. This was the final model of the iPhone 15 Professional that featured Venture Bongo, because it was abruptly faraway from CRB and DVT-stage unit designs in April 2023.
Apple additionally examined the design on pre-production prototypes of the iPhone 16 vary. Later, the Bongo design was noticed on a drop-test prototype of the iPhone 14 Professional, which featured a tough, non-functional model of Apple’s haptic buttons.
How Apple’s haptic button design works
Even earlier than Apple’s patent was made public, the small print of the Bongo module design have been already identified. In our report detailing the EVT-stage prototype, we defined that Apple’s haptic button used flexures and pressure gauges to detect modifications in stress. In brief, as soon as a press was detected, {an electrical} sign can be despatched to the “Bongo Haptic Engine.”
Apple’s patent utility outlines a button with an built-in haptic engine. Picture Credit score: Apple / USPTO
The Bongo Haptic Engine was an electromagnetic reluctance motor, consisting of a ferromagnetic core and copper coil, that collectively represent a solenoid. It generated haptic suggestions the identical method the common Taptic Engine does, by oscillating in relation to an attraction plate positioned beneath.
Apple’s patent utility successfully describes the Bongo Haptic Engine:
The haptic engine could embrace a core and an electrical coil disposed round no less than a portion of the core. The core could also be shaped from a ferromagnetic materials, ferrimagnetic materials, or different appropriate materials (e.g., iron, ferrite, metal, ferrous supplies, a everlasting magnet, iron alloys, and so on.).
The patent utility additionally explains how all the course of works, which mirrors what we outlined again in 2024:
When a person presses the button, the core could transfer barely towards the attraction plate. A number of power sensors (e.g., a number of pressure gauges) connected to the haptic module could also be used to detect the person’s press. In response to a processor or different circuitry detecting the press, {an electrical} sign could also be utilized to the electrical coil. So as to produce a haptic output on the button, the electrical coil surrounding the core could also be energized (e.g., by a circuit that applies a present or present waveform to the electrical coil), which causes the core to be drawn to the attraction plate.
Apple’s {hardware} descriptions in the end come as no shock, provided that we have seen totally purposeful prototypes of the identical know-how. What stays to be seen, nonetheless, is whether or not the Bongo design will probably be repurposed for a future iPhone, or possibly one thing else fully.
Will future Apple merchandise characteristic haptic quantity and energy buttons?
Whereas Apple’s patent utility in the end offers no new details about its haptic button design, it does embrace an fascinating tidbit. Partially, it mentions that the Bongo design featured all through the doc is perhaps utilized in “numerous digital units,” together with smartphones, tablets, and extra.
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Apple’s haptic button design was used on prototypes of the iPhone 15 Professional. Picture Credit score: AppleInsider
The patent utility explains that it may be used on wearables, wrist-worn units, head-mounted units, and “digital pencils.” Because of this the haptic button module would possibly, in concept, someday seem on an Apple Watch, Apple Imaginative and prescient Professional, or Apple Pencil.
Although at face worth it looks as if a distant chance, it does align with a rumor from April 2025. Leaker On the spot Digital claimed that Apple was “nonetheless adjusting the tactile design of solid-state keys and their reliability after long-term use.” On the time, in addition they stated that there was a “downside of false contact,” and that “the responsiveness can’t be completely assured.”
Judging by the leaker’s claims and the data AppleInsider obtained concerning the Bongo venture, Apple’s haptic buttons have lengthy been marred by technical difficulties. We have been instructed that the venture was initially shelved due to unsatisfactory check outcomes and excessive {hardware} failure charges, and that also appears to be the case.
Nonetheless, Apple went via the difficulty of submitting a patent utility for its issue-prone haptic button module, and the corporate examined the design throughout three totally different iPhone generations. There is a chance the Bongo design will someday resurface in some form or type, and the corporate’s patent utility is a robust indication that it hasn’t been discarded in its entirety.
