The Galaxy S26 lineup is weeks away from launch, and while leaks have covered nearly every spec, one detail just surfaced that Samsung didn’t want anyone to know: they almost added a dedicated camera button.
A LinkedIn post from a former Samsung supplier employee confirmed the company commissioned work on a “camera button with swipe gesture functionality” for the S26 (via – Android Authority). That phrasing sounds familiar because it’s essentially Apple’s Camera Control setup: a capacitive touch surface with haptic feedback that lets you swipe to adjust zoom or settings without lifting your finger.
Samsung wouldn’t have been breaking new ground here. OPPO and vivo already cloned Apple’s approach on recent flagships like the Find X8 and X200 Ultra. But this would’ve been Samsung’s first camera-dedicated hardware in over a decade. The last Galaxy phone with one was the 2014 Galaxy K Zoom, a digital camera that happened to run Android.
Current S26 renders show no sign of the button, and reliable leakers never mentioned it. The simplest explanation: Samsung developed it, tested it, then killed it before finalizing the design.
That’s not unusual. Phone makers prototype features constantly and scrap most of them. What’s interesting is that someone commissioned real hardware for this, suggesting it got further than a concept mockup.
Whether Samsung dropped it due to cost, ergonomics, or user testing feedback, we won’t know. But the fact they explored it at all suggests they’re watching Apple’s moves more closely than they’d admit.
