Wild Apple patent hints at an iPhone with multiple customizable action buttons

If you’re still struggling to get used to the Action button which Apple brought to its Pro iPhones in late 2023 and to the standard models earlier this year, we have bad news: the discovery of a surprising patent application suggests future versions of the iPhone may be equipped with multiple such buttons. We might even get Action buttons on the iPad and Mac.

Patent application 20240393933 was filed by Apple back in May but was only published (and promptly spotted by Patently Apple) at the end of November. It covers what it cryptically refers to as “Devices, methods, and graphical user interfaces for configuring configurable input region,” but it becomes apparent upon further investigation that this means customizable handset buttons.

Accompanying illustrations show the three hardware buttons running down the lefthand edge of what appears to be an iPhone. At present, only the topmost of these (the Action button) is user-configurable, while the volume-up and -down buttons are (mostly) locked to those functions. But in the drawings, all three offer this capability: in this image, for example, the volume-down button is being used to call a contact.

But there’s an interesting bonus to this story, which is that the Action button may cease to be an iPhone exclusive. “In some embodiments,” the patent reads, “the device is a portable communications device [such as] the iPhone… and iPad. Other portable electronic devices, such as laptops or tablet computers with touch-sensitive surfaces… are, optionally, used.”

In other words, get ready Action buttons everywhere! Or not, as patent activity, as ever, is not necessarily an indicator of future decisions, but merely shows one path the company has considered (and wishes to block its competitors from pursuing). It may decide that the upgrade would be too costly, or take up too many developmental resources that could be better deployed elsewhere. Or the change may come but take several years to arrive.