The famous Touch Bar of MacBook Pros may reappear in an iPhone model in the future. Apple has been working on a side secondary display with virtual buttons for the iPhone for more than a decade, according to patent filings spotted by AppleInsider.
Apple says this flexible side display may include virtual buttons with “a transparent button, lenses, haptic feedback components, audio feedback components, or other components that provide feedback to the user when the virtual buttons are activated.”
It’s also possible to see a “Now Playing” message in one of the images, so Apple could use this side screen for Live Events, for example.
Interestingly, this iPhone patent appears to be even more complex than Apple’s unified solid-state buttons, which were first rumored to be available with the iPhone 15 series and may now come with the iPhone 16 Pro models.
Either way, Apple is constantly working on new features for one of the most forgotten parts of the iPhone: the volume and side buttons. Cupertino has tweaked the iPhone 15 Pro models by adding an Action Button, and it looks like more changes may be coming in the future.
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