In the early days of smartphones, button-less phones used to be the ultimate vision of all manufacturers.

In the first decade of the iPhone's life, this picture fooled me more than once.

 

                                                              The once-rumoured iPhone concept

 

Although it has been deduced and commercially proven by many that mobile phones without physical buttons may not bring a bright future, but only trouble.

But X blogger @AppleDemoYT has discovered a prototype iPhone that reveals Apple has some curveball ideas for this ‘magic glass’.

 

 

Instead of the traditional Apple logo, this iPhone has what looks like two crescent-shaped symbols.

The shape formed by the intersection of these two discs of the same radius, known in Latin as Vesica Piscis, is often used as a basic element of sacred geometry, and is associated with the golden ratio, square triangles, plane geometry and architecture, with a host of other meanings behind it.

The symbol has appeared on other Apple devices before, such as the AirTag prototypes, and given that the final product is often derived from these prototypes, the Vesica Piscis here may also signify a kind of gestation and creation.

 

 

Vesica Piscis

 

The best thing about this prototype is that everything on the bezel doesn't click when you press the buttons.

The power and volume buttons have been removed mechanically and can't be ‘pressed down’ in the traditional sense, while the two volume buttons have been dreamt up for the iPhone 3GS and no longer stand alone, but are connected.

 

Image from X blogger @AppleDemoYT

 

This reminds me of Apple's former ‘Project Bango’ - a plan first revealed in early 2023 to put MacBook trackpads with Touch ID's analogue vibration technology on the iPhone bezel's buttons, using haptic feedback to mimic the sensation of a press. With the delay in haptic buttons, Apple could use a single-button design with standard physical buttons.

One of Apple's internal modules for the volume, mute and power buttons is called Bango.

 

Bango Module Renders from MacRumors and UnknownZ21

 

  If nothing else, the iPhone spotted by X blogger @AppleDemoYT is one of Project Bango's demonstrators.

According to the disassembled images, there is very little wiring on the internal motherboard, which is only connected to the charging port and the physical buttons that have no mechanical structure, meaning that the rest of the iPhone's components are probably just models that don't actually work, such as the camera and the plastic microphone.

 

 

There's some extra mystery on the bezel, with a bunch of configuration information in the margin next to the volume buttons:

 ►RANGER-DROP2.5_D2-5DRS_000739

 ►The four parts of this string of code may each represent:

 ►RANGER: may be the code name of a project or specific prototype hardware

 ►DROP2.5: 2.5 metre drop test

 ►D2-5DRS: This section may relate to the designation of a specific hardware configuration, internal module or functional integration

 ►000739: Usually a number or serial number that identifies a specific batch or release

That said, this iPhone prototype may be used to test the durability of pressure-sensitive buttons in real-world use, as well as their impact resistance in the event of an accidental drop.

 

Image from X blogger @AppleDemoYT

 

Plugging this iPhone prototype into a power source, the iPhone automatically turns on and displays ‘MCU Init Done’ on the connected Mac, meaning that the MCU initialisation is complete, further proving that this is not a complete iPhone.

On the Mac, the prototype also left a small egg - in line with other Apple monolithic tests, the iPhone identifies itself as ‘Bender’ on the Mac.

The name comes from another sci-fi animation released by Matt Groening, the creator of The Simpsons, Flying Out of the Future, in which Bender Bending Rodríguez is a much-loved robot seen as representative of a certain anticlimactic, hilarious and satirical spirit.

 

Image from X blogger @AppleDemoYT

 

Based on the serial number of this prototype, the iPhone indicates a manufacturing date between 23rd and 29th May 2021, long before the iPhone 13 was released.

However, we can rule out the possibility that this is a prototype of the iPhone 13 Pro, as the 13 series at this point may have been in mid-to-final testing and didn't use pressure-sensitive buttons when it finally launched.

Image from X blogger @AppleDemoYT

 

The teardown images further confirm this possibility, as you can see from the images that the prototype looks like a hybrid of the iPhone 13 Pro and the iPhone 14 Pro, while the battery is covered with a layer of metal, similar to that of the iPhone 16 Pro.

 

Image from X blogger @AppleDemoYT

 

But with the launch of the iPhone 15 Pro in the second half of ‘23, Project Bango was also declared bankrupt, and until now, we haven't had to wait for an iPhone with pressure-sensitive buttons.

Don't be disappointed, though, as it's been revealed that Project Bango was in the late stages of engineering validation testing before it failed, which is pretty close to a success, as features like Touch ID, Face ID, and wireless charging that we're all familiar with were laid down early on and then polished over a long period of time before arriving in everyone's hands.

The Vesica Piscis-inscribed iPhone at least proves that Apple does have ideas in this direction, and has already put them into practice, so perhaps in the near future we'll be able to witness the birth of an iPhone that's controlled entirely by pressure-sensitive buttons.