Apple may be about to retire one of its newest hardware features. According to the leaker known as "Instant Digital" in a post on Weibo, Apple plans to merge the iPhone's Action Button with the Camera Control starting next year, with the change reportedly reaching the iPhone 20 range, per MacRumors and AppleInsider.

The Action Button debuted on the iPhone 15 Pro in 2023, replacing the decades-old mute switch with a customizable control that could trigger shortcuts, the camera, the flashlight, or silent mode. Camera Control arrived a generation later as a second dedicated input. Consolidating the two would simplify the iPhone's increasingly crowded edge — at the cost of a button some users have only recently built habits around.

Anyone hoping the move means the return of the physical mute switch should temper expectations: AppleInsider notes the much-missed toggle is not coming back as part of this change.

The usual caveats apply. Weibo-sourced leaks have a mixed track record, and Apple's button plans have shifted late in development before. But a three-year lifespan would make the standalone Action Button one of the shorter-lived hardware experiments in recent iPhone history.