The next iPhone needs to steal this Apple Watch feature

For the longest time, the entire smartphone industry appeared to be marching in lockstep towards a button-free tomorrow, primarily spearheaded by Apple. In 2007, the original iPhone famously nixed BlackBerry-era staples like the physical keyboard, the trackpad, the convenience key, and the dedicated call and hang up keys, and it didn’t take long for Android-based competitors to quickly follow suit.

Then, in 2017, Apple’s iPhone X ushered in the era of gesture-based navigation, ditching its iconic physical home button in the process. Right on cue, Android hardware manufacturers adopted similar gesture systems of their own, which ultimately spelled the end for front-facing home, multitasking, and back buttons of both the physical and the capacitive variety.

Next, rumors began to swirl that a button-free iPhone was in the works, which was to axe the sleep / wake and volume keys in favor of pressure-sensitive alternatives. It was around this time that we even saw HTC take a stab at precisely this idea, with pressurized solid-state buttons appearing on both its U11 and U12+ handsets in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

Then, seemingly overnight, the mobile button Renaissance hit like a tsunami. Android smartphones began sprouting dedicated multi-function and AI assistant buttons, Apple introduced the Action Button and then the Camera Control onto the iPhone, and, most recently, we’re even seeing a novel resurgence in phones toting BlackBerry-esque physical keyboards.

For me, this development is good news. I love a solid, tactile button, and I yearn for a future filled with aggressively ribbed power keys like the one found on my aging HTC 10. On the philosophical side of things, I don’t agree with phasing out mechanical technologies simply for the sake of doing so — we saw the consequences of this when the automotive industry decided to embrace touch-sensitive car dash buttons, despite concerns over responsiveness and driver safety.

In any case, this all has me thinking: now that Apple has consecrated the return of physical buttons on our mobile gadgets, why not take things a step further and port the Apple Watch’s Digital Crown experience over to the iPhone?

A Digital Crown would fit the iPhone like a glove

Tactile, accessible, multipurpose, and just plain cool

Apple’s Digital Crown is a brilliant bit of engineering that often goes underappreciated. It’s compact, it’s smooth as butter to articulate, and it’s extremely responsive. As a hybrid between a digital button and an analog watch crown, the Digital Crown is an absolute slam dunk.

On the Apple Watch, the Digital Crown offers various functions based on how you interact with it: a single press takes you to your watch face or to your Home Screen, a double-press opens the App Switcher, a long-press triggers Siri, and twisting the crown allows for zooming, scrolling, or panning depending on the context.

On the iPhone, there’s a lot of potential to make the Digital Crowna worthwhile addition to the mobile handset experience. Right off the bat, the crown has the capacity to replace dedicated volume up and down keys, serving as a luxurious stand-alone volume knob. The single-press, double-press, and long-press actions could negate the need for a bespoke Action Button, while also serving double duty as accessibility shortcuts for those with motor disabilities.

Aside from adjusting volume levels, scrollable crowns are also perfectly suited for scrolling through apps, website pages, documents, and more. With this in mind, I’d love to see Apple’s Digital Crown make its way over to the iPad, perhaps in a slightly larger format. Heck, with how well suited crown input is for adjusting volume on headphones like the AirPods Max and the Surface Headphones, I can see value in replacing the volume keys with a Digital Crown on a next-generation Magic Keyboard, too. While we’re at it, how about a revamped Mighty Mouse with a 360-degree Digital Crown…anybody?

Alright, perhaps the idea of bolting a Digital Crown onto every possible category of tech product is a bit avant-garde, but, nevertheless, I’d personally pay good money for a next-generation iPhone with a crown on its side — the coolness factor alone would sell me on the feature, and I’d have no issue if it meant sacrificing the Action Button or even the Camera Control in the process.