Apple could remove home button in next-gen iPad, iPhone - rumor - Page 3

I tend to agree with Gruber that advanced finger-swipes are a great shortcut, but that you need some clear anchor for new users... you can't expect someone picking up an iOS device for the first time to understand multi-finger pinches and swipes. The beauty of iPhone was that with one click, you were in business.

One problem, however with no button on an iPhone is the glass back. When I reach for my iPhone in the dark, the only way I can tell orientation is by feeling for the home button. Without it I'd have to fumble around the edges, probably for the volume buttons.

Not that I'm opposed to remapping a button for pictures is that's what the user wants, but clicking a button, particularly the home button, would be about the worst way possible to take a picture without movement. A touch 'lift' (the camera does not trigger on touch, but on the release) is probably the least movement inducing method.

I just wish the shutter 'button' was bigger.

I am betting that Apple will ultimately stray from the glass back design. It is pretty, but too much opportunity for breakage. Of course even if they do eliminate the glass back, I still vote for a physical button. It just makes sense.

Right. Apple just released the leak so the Android designers would definitely make a phone with no buttons, a feature that apparently everyone hates. "See, we were right all along. No buttons is the future. Apple confirmed it."

And not because of kotatsu's demonstrated hatred of Steve, and all things Apple.

I doubt very much that Apple will eliminate the Home button on iDevices, and the evidence that they are "planning to" is so thin as to be non-existent. There's no reason to think that adding new functionality means they will take away existing; nothing wrong with having more than one way to do something, and let the user use the most convenient at the moment.

Gruber is all wet. The iPad in particular has no correct orientation, therefore no need for an anchor. The only reason orientation is even slightly important is because of the home button. if Apple can figure out how to eliminate the home button, then more power to them. Good thing Apple doesn't listen to the posters on this board. If they did, they'd have to believe that nothing can be improved, and that change is automatically a bad thing.

Sorry.

Comedy and sarcasm are both hard to do on the net. Your so dry I always end up assuming that your being straight when you're not.

I'd hate to see the home button go away, just like taking away the ipad rotation lock button really sucked. But not a huge deal either way for me, I could remember a gesture.

but on the other hand, the ipad is an amazing device for young kids, even 2 year olds. Mine need that button to 'reset' the app when they get lost, then they can find an app again and get back in. Foolproof gestures are NOT possible for young kids.

If Apple does this, I'm switching to Android.

Haha! Just kidding. But seriously, if Apple does this, I expect Android phones to do the same. By coincidence. Because Samsung never copied Apple... (yeah right)

This makes sense not.

Will never happen, because this would make entering debugging / DFU mode very hard. You can't do multitouch when your device isn't booting.

A physical button is a million times better then a "soft" button because it is harder to tap by accident and it can work without the device itself being able to boot.

What will happen is a choice. You can do the finger gesture for speed, or button for familiarity/debugging.

The controls are best placed in the bezel. So for example, swipe left-to-right on the black strip is the switcher, swipe-right-to-left goes home. The swipes would be large enough that they couldn't be accidental.

It means that an application hanging won't prevent being able to quit the app and it means one less physical button to wear out after years of use. It means the controls work from the same place in any orientation too.

I'm not sure if Apple will do it, it could go either way but I think they should do it.

Heck some only have use of one finger, perhaps two. And accessibility is something Apple has always been keen on. For the handicapped, the elderly etc.

Which is part of why I don't think they will remove the home button, just change it to something other than in the bezel.

Imagine the iPhone without Home button. Dreams, dreams...

Not necessarily. I think the a4 chip actually sits on top where the speaker is, and the bottom space houses the dock connector and loud speaker. I don't think Removing button itself will save that much space.

I hope they get rid of it. Gestures work fine, software rarely locks up anymore unless you jailbreak, and the power button could be expanded in functionality / new button could be added to the side on the top right.

Would be nice to have a clean bezel.

I think identity is important. This is one thing that always separates popular items. Look at any brand, McDonalds, Coca-cola, AT&T, UPS, HBO, Starbucks, The Simpsons. Any number of them have an identity that you associate with the name. The iPhone has an identity and you could draw a picture of an iPhone based on that association. If I said draw an EVO 4G or Google Nexus, it's not so easy.

I think the above image loses the identity. Even if you push the screen further out to the edges, it doesn't look like an iPhone:



I think making the screen taller is all they can do but they will be limited as the speaker at the top is circular. If they just made it taller, the aspect ratio changes, which isn't great for developers but I don't think it would be too bad because Apple can make the search box permanent and have unobtrusive notifications:





For game devs, it doesn't matter much as it's just OpenGL so they just extend the OpenGL context and they can choose to run apps within a cropped window.


You could have a sensor in the bezel that works without the device booted up or maybe use the accelerometer. Hold the power button and shake the device or some combination of power button presses.

Kind of digging that classy little notification area-- although I think Apple uses a non-serif typeface, no?

I could see Apple doing something along these lines to address the woeful notification situation. I'd be curious to see your ideas about something similar to give us more info on the home screen. I suspect they'll never give in to the flashy Android billboard idea, no matter how much fans of that platform seem to feel a phone isn't fully alive until you have all kinds of shit going on all the time every time you look at it. I could see some very refined, user selectable data.

Do you really believe in what you are saying? If Apple tried to keep "the identity", the new Mac Book Air would still have resembled the Apple-I (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I)
Large iPhone and iPad bezels are nothing more than a design compromise. It should and will go away.

They have to innovate and move on. The extra space for browsing and for wide screen HD viewing would be the sweetest thing they could give to you... well unless you care about the product identity too much.

Just move it to the side.

Apple has a patent for a software bezel that can disappear when it's not needed. they will never be able to implement that so long as the button is there in the way. Once they delete the button you can have true edge to edge screen and still have a bezel for your thumbs. (I'm thinking mainly about the iPad, I don't know if this would be something for the iPhone).

I heard Jakob Nielsen almost committed suicide after reading about the possibility of the iPad eschewing the Home button.

Was just thinking that as well. Why not move it to the side/edge of the case? Does Steve really abhor buttons THAT much?

No reason the home button and advanced gestures can't coexist. Replacing something that requires ONE finger with a gesture that requires five seems very un-Apple, even Microsoft-like.

For the last time, I am totally straight! And furthermore, I was never anywhere near those sheep!


Seriously though, my remark about telekinesis didn't make it obvious I was kidding? Should I have used some smilies or winks or something to make it clearer?

I guess this means the new nano was popular.

I like the simplicity of the home button. I like that consecutive taps always take you to the app folder>springboard>first home screen>search no matter where you are.

I don't see Steve ever asking people to perform a scrunch gesture (five finger pinch) on an iPhone sized screen for something as rudimentary as returning to the home screen.

If they did remove they home button anywhere it would be the iPad. I imagine that would tie nicely into the orientation neutralilty of the device. It would be annoying though if you accidentally triggered a scrunch gesture in a drawing app or a multitouch game like eliss. And some companies have started using iPads as low cost kiosks because they can hide the underlying OS by simply locking the iPad inside a device which covers the home button.

That's right, I'm not sure why I used a serif. I also think that it would be better one at a time so you can tap to see it:



The little dots would indicate which notification you were on and how many there were. Swipe left and right would move them, swipe down would hide the notifications and swipe up from the bezel would show them again. Tap it for actions including removing that notification.


Apple has the Palm Pre notifications guy on board now so hopefully they will be similar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaqoGGdSfjI

I'm not keen on the huge space it takes up in that example. I think a small line of text with the app name or icon would suffice and then you'd tap the notification to see the actions.


I actually like the current design. I really don't like the Android setup nor the Windows Phone setup because I think it's better to know what to expect when you perform an action. WP7 has no scrollbars and it just crops content, with Android, it's not immediately obvious what screen you are moving to.

One thing they could do with the above design is replace the search page with a Dashboard-like page (they'd call it mission control now probably) but I don't think it could be setup the same way. What would be useful though is a feed that pulls a collection of information in from supported apps shown above. They would have this for all apps and it could be in the SDK so developers can push data into the feed.

For calls, you can have a list of items like missed calls and voicemails in order missed and who from. You'd have Twitter and Facebook feeds and you could just use it as a planner so that you knew what activity needed the most attention. It would just be a scrollable list of single line feeds. Tapping one could open a full-screen popup or just expand inline.


The identity can change for sure. The white iMac going to the metal one was a large change but they still maintain some unique design characteristics so that you can tell even without the logo that you are looking at an Apple product. That wasn't the case with products like the Apple 1 as they looked the same as the others.

I like the idea of a bigger screen for browsing, especially but a slightly taller screen would do this and give more space for typing in portrait mode.