But Apple is going to have to come up with a better solution for the Home button eventually, and after 7 years, it has gotten a little long in the tooth. It's an elementary learning tool for the idevice, that really isn't needed once someone is comfortable with the concept, like the one-button mouse. Way too much room is taken up on the device with the home button. Perhaps moving it to the back side in order to keep the current functionality and use it with one hand?
The report mostly focuses on the S5 having these features (bezel-free and in screen fingerprint scanner). So let's first see later this month if the S5 has it, then we know if this rumor is bogus or not.
Posting that image without any context isn't a salient argument. I'm not sure there is an argument that can be made here considering it omits the size of the display. Wouldn't it be better to have instead posted the area of non-dispaly area for each device or the side bezel width of each device? I think so.
Posting that image without any context isn't a salient argument. I'm not sure there is an argument that can be made here considering it omits the size of the display. Wouldn't it be better to have instead posted the area of non-dispaly area for each device or the side bezel width of each device? I think so.
I don't think so. The size of the display only matters if you're assuming that you need to account for a "physical button/speaker constant." But that really isn't the case. a circular button can only get so small, but a different shape isn't bound in this sense. Also the speaker/mic can be displaced or minimized.
If you account for the possibility that a screen could be 100% of the front surface, all of this is furthermore irrelevant. (A 2cm screen and 2m screen are both 100%.)
If you assume that there must be SOME bezel, that constant is still approaching zero (mathematically,) and is marginal if it is sufficiently small and the screen is sufficiently big (fractions of a percent of area.)
I don't think so. The size of the display only matters if you're assuming that you need to account for a "physical button/speaker constant." But that really isn't the case. a circular button can only get so small, but a different shape isn't bound in this sense. Also the speaker/mic can be displaced or minimized.
If you account for the possibility that a screen could be 100% of the front surface, all of this is furthermore irrelevant. (A 2cm screen and 2m screen are both 100%.)
If you assume that there must be SOME bezel, that constant is still approaching zero (mathematically,) and is marginal if it is sufficiently small and the screen is sufficiently big (fractions of a percent of area.)
1) You're making my point for me and it has nothing to do with the size of the home button. It's a percentage of the footprint that isn't a screen, but since the screen sizes are so different even a much larger bezel on a 6" phone will look like it's smaller than on a 3.5" phone looking at only that percentages, which is why this measure is pointless.
2) I see no possibility for the entire front surface to be a display if they are going to continue to use rounded corners.
Posting that image without any context isn't a salient argument. I'm not sure there is an argument that can be made here considering it omits the size of the display. Wouldn't it be better to have instead posted the area of non-dispaly area for each device or the side bezel width of each device? I think so.
It wasn't posted to prove anything. It was simply as reference. With that said, from an article at 9to5 that commented on it:
"Apple is at a disadvantage because of the home button/Touch ID rather than the on screen buttons of Android. Also, the iPhone is symmetric meaning the same big bezel on the bottom is needed at the top so that the screen sits in the exact middle of the phone."
1) You're making my point for me and it has nothing to do with the size of the home button. It's a percentage of the footprint that isn't a screen, but since the screen sizes are so different even a much larger bezel on a 6" phone will look like it's smaller than on a 3.5" phone looking at only that percentages, which is why this measure is pointless.
2) I see no possibility for the entire front surface to be a display if they are going to continue to use rounded corners.
1) I'll grant you that a bezel with a fixed height will have a diminishing percent of the area as the screen size increases, but what I'm saying is that either the bezel isn't fixed, or the bezel is fixed at a height that is negligible. It would seem strange indeed if a 2cm screen had a 2cm (height) bezel. And it would also seem to follow that a larger screen would have an increasingly large bezel until it ceased to be of any use. (starting at 2cm screen size, as you increase the screen area the bezel area will increase until a larger bezel no longer makes sense.)
If we apply this reasoning, then it follows that the size of the bezel is a function of the screen size, within a restricted domain (neither too small nor too big) and should be proportional (although not linear) as screen size increases.
But if we don't follow this reasoning, and assume that the bezel is independent of the screen size (i.e. a 2mm bezel fits a 2cm screen as well as it fits 2m screen) then the area of the bezel is negligible.
2) They may do without the rounded corners or not. That is a design choice.
It wasn't posted to prove anything. It was simply as reference. With that said, from an article at 9to5 that commented on it:
"Apple is at a disadvantage because of the home button/Touch ID rather than the on screen buttons of Android. Also, the iPhone is symmetric meaning the same big bezel on the bottom is needed at the top so that the screen sits in the exact middle of the phone."
Those are not disadvantages. There have plenty of reports regarding the weird and inconsistent nature of Android's on-screen buttons. Being a "disadvantage" in terms of that chart is pointless because the measure it pointless.
Lets remember how area works. To increase a display measure by 50% — say from 4" to 6" whilst maintaing a 16:9 aspect ratio — you are in fact more than doubling (about 2.25x) the amount of display area, yet the bezels can mostly likely stay the same thickness with this change. The iPhone 5 didn't reduce the bezel area by 6.6% when moving to the larger display size, they simply increased the size of the display.
1) I'll grant you that a bezel with a fixed height will have a diminishing percent of the area as the screen size increases, but what I'm saying is that either the bezel isn't fixed, or the bezel is fixed at a height that is negligible. It would seem strange indeed if a 2cm screen had a 2cm (height) bezel. And it would also seem to follow that a larger screen would have an increasingly large bezel until it ceased to be of any use. (starting at 2cm screen size, as you increase the screen area the bezel area will increase until a larger bezel no longer makes sense.)
If we apply this reasoning, then it follows that the size of the bezel is a function of the screen size, within a restricted domain (neither too small nor too big) and should be proportional (although not linear) as screen size increases.
But if we don't follow this reasoning, and assume that the bezel is independent of the screen size (i.e. a 2mm bezel fits a 2cm screen as well as it fits 2m screen) then the area of the bezel is negligible.
2) They may do without the rounded corners or not. That is a design choice.
1a) Bezels aren't fixed but there but there sizes are partly determined by the type of the display panel used, how much structure needs to be included to support the device and components, and engineering prowess. This last one can be smaller or larger depending on the quality. For example, there have been plenty of UltraBooks that felt flimsy* because they wanted to make it lighter and smaller and there is the Panasonic ToughBooks that are made more durable and therefore are larger and thicker. The better built machines in this example is the thicker one.
1b) Yes, I think bezel sizing for, say, a 3.5" and 4" phone will be pretty much the same with all other component types being equal and yet we have a report implying (or at least being inferred) as something else. We aren't talking about a watch face v 4K HDTV here.
2) I see no world where one side ends by making a hard and sharp 90° turn.
* I seem to recall a video from this year's WWDC of a notebook feel like it was going to crack in your hands. I'll see if I can locate the source.
they also want no bezels and no Home Button… so they also can’t use the phone with two hands!
How does the absence of either bezel or Home button affect my ability to use two hands? Each hand cups the device the same way you would with one hand.
I think you missed the point, which is that to Fandroids, everything Apple designs, from thin-and-portable to walled gardens, is a disadvantage. Only Google can save Apple. /s
One possibility is a software-based home button a la Android, but that would be a terrible idea. No tactility,
I do not feel that the feeling of a click is more important than a common and frequent point of failure. Of the six iPhones we've owned, four had a Home button failure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinder6
no way to press it to wake the device
I use the button on top for that already. Why do we need a Home button for that?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinder6
it takes up valuable screen real estate
!!! A software button, that can be sized and repositioned at will, is a greater space problem than a 3/4" strip of empty across the entire width of the device along the bottom with the sole purpose of housing a singe button that serves no function while using any app? Seriously?
Those are not disadvantages. There have plenty of reports regarding the weird and inconsistent nature of Android's on-screen buttons. Being a "disadvantage" in terms of that chart is pointless because the measure it pointless.
Lets remember how area works. To increase a display measure by 50% — say from 4" to 6" whilst maintaing a 16:9 aspect ratio — you are in fact more than doubling (about 2.25x) the amount of display area, yet the bezels can mostly likely stay the same thickness with this change. The iPhone 5 didn't reduce the bezel area by 6.6% when moving to the larger display size, they simply increased the size of the display.
1a) Bezels aren't fixed but there but there sizes are partly determined by the type of the display panel used, how much structure needs to be included to support the device and components, and engineering prowess. This last one can be smaller or larger depending on the quality. For example, there have been plenty of UltraBooks that felt flimsy* because they wanted to make it lighter and smaller and there is the Panasonic ToughBooks that are made more durable and therefore are larger and thicker. The better built machines in this example is the thicker one.
1b) Yes, I think bezel sizing for, say, a 3.5" and 4" phone will be pretty much the same with all other component types being equal and yet we have a report implying (or at least being inferred) as something else. We aren't talking about a watch face v 4K HDTV here.
2) I see no world where one side ends by making a hard and sharp 90° turn.
* I seem to recall a video from this year's WWDC of a notebook feel like it was going to crack in your hands. I'll see if I can locate the source.
Here you go Soli. I calculated the size of the bezels of all the devices on that list. It's not perfectly accurate because I made the calculations assuming all the devices have flat sides. The first picture shows them ordered by side bezels smallest to largest. The second is top/bottom bezels smallest to largest.
The iPhones have reasonably small side bezels as of the 5/5s, but the top and bottom bezels are relatively enormous thanks to the home button and requirement of symmetry.
There is no reason why the home button can't go the side. We have 5 buttons on an iPhone. Mute. Sound up. Sound down. The top/sleep button - all on the side or top - and a ginormous home button taking up vast spacd on the front. Particularly if you take the symmetry into account. Unfortunately it's now not only a home button but a touch id, which presumably needs to be fingerprint size.
Obviously the home button is here to stay. I agree with people who say that current bezel free concepts are ugly. I think that the rumor of a glass that curves on the sides could be a solution to having a less sharp edge, thus making it look a lot better. But that's just speculation.
If Apple does a bigger screen, those huge samsung phones will look even more ridicule than they are.
If Apple truly have found a way to produce reliable, non fragile sapphire sheets for iPhone fronts that's one hell of an advantage. I'm not convinced by 'in-display' fingerprint sensors, it would seem an awful lot of cost and complexity to avoid a user having to touch the home button.
Having said that, I think the home button is sorta reaching the EOL. It already encompasses so many different functions, I think it's time to look at whether there's anything better. I quite like Android's software button design, but I wish they were real physical buttons some of the time. It's a problem from either perspective as physical buttons can't be hidden and a display placed there, but software buttons don't have good tactile feedback.
Either way, the next gen of phones will be very interesting indeed.
That home button is there to stay. The iPhone will probably just keep a chin, like the iMac. It gives it a unique look.
That's how you use a flexible display. You pull down the edges so it appears to be edgeless. The contacts are then vertical along the sides. You would need to make the edges curved, not a hard edge like the current iPhone, so that the maximum bend is not exceeded for the flexible display. Later models could pull the display all the way over the edge and down the sides to some degree allowing information and controls (volume for example) to be shown along the edges.
You are imagining too much. This is just a rumor. The next iPhone won't have a flexible screen for sure.
There is no reason why the home button can't go the side. We have 5 buttons on an iPhone. Mute. Sound up. Sound down. The top/sleep button - all on the side or top - and a ginormous home button taking up vast spacd on the front. Particularly if you take the symmetry into account. Unfortunately it's now not only a home button but a touch id, which presumably needs to be fingerprint size.
Horrible, horrible idea. The centered round home button is one of the reasons of the success of the iPhone. It's essential.
Comments
Am I the only one who thinks it looks ugly without side bezels?
FULLY EXPECTED THIS.
But Apple is going to have to come up with a better solution for the Home button eventually, and after 7 years, it has gotten a little long in the tooth. It's an elementary learning tool for the idevice, that really isn't needed once someone is comfortable with the concept, like the one-button mouse. Way too much room is taken up on the device with the home button. Perhaps moving it to the back side in order to keep the current functionality and use it with one hand?
Nice and slanted, just the way you like your information.
OFFICIAL SEAL OF QUALITY.
Posting that image without any context isn't a salient argument. I'm not sure there is an argument that can be made here considering it omits the size of the display. Wouldn't it be better to have instead posted the area of non-dispaly area for each device or the side bezel width of each device? I think so.
I don't think so. The size of the display only matters if you're assuming that you need to account for a "physical button/speaker constant." But that really isn't the case. a circular button can only get so small, but a different shape isn't bound in this sense. Also the speaker/mic can be displaced or minimized.
If you account for the possibility that a screen could be 100% of the front surface, all of this is furthermore irrelevant. (A 2cm screen and 2m screen are both 100%.)
If you assume that there must be SOME bezel, that constant is still approaching zero (mathematically,) and is marginal if it is sufficiently small and the screen is sufficiently big (fractions of a percent of area.)
1) You're making my point for me and it has nothing to do with the size of the home button. It's a percentage of the footprint that isn't a screen, but since the screen sizes are so different even a much larger bezel on a 6" phone will look like it's smaller than on a 3.5" phone looking at only that percentages, which is why this measure is pointless.
2) I see no possibility for the entire front surface to be a display if they are going to continue to use rounded corners.
It wasn't posted to prove anything. It was simply as reference. With that said, from an article at 9to5 that commented on it:
"Apple is at a disadvantage because of the home button/Touch ID rather than the on screen buttons of Android. Also, the iPhone is symmetric meaning the same big bezel on the bottom is needed at the top so that the screen sits in the exact middle of the phone."
1) I'll grant you that a bezel with a fixed height will have a diminishing percent of the area as the screen size increases, but what I'm saying is that either the bezel isn't fixed, or the bezel is fixed at a height that is negligible. It would seem strange indeed if a 2cm screen had a 2cm (height) bezel. And it would also seem to follow that a larger screen would have an increasingly large bezel until it ceased to be of any use. (starting at 2cm screen size, as you increase the screen area the bezel area will increase until a larger bezel no longer makes sense.)
If we apply this reasoning, then it follows that the size of the bezel is a function of the screen size, within a restricted domain (neither too small nor too big) and should be proportional (although not linear) as screen size increases.
But if we don't follow this reasoning, and assume that the bezel is independent of the screen size (i.e. a 2mm bezel fits a 2cm screen as well as it fits 2m screen) then the area of the bezel is negligible.
2) They may do without the rounded corners or not. That is a design choice.
Those are not disadvantages. There have plenty of reports regarding the weird and inconsistent nature of Android's on-screen buttons. Being a "disadvantage" in terms of that chart is pointless because the measure it pointless.
Lets remember how area works. To increase a display measure by 50% — say from 4" to 6" whilst maintaing a 16:9 aspect ratio — you are in fact more than doubling (about 2.25x) the amount of display area, yet the bezels can mostly likely stay the same thickness with this change. The iPhone 5 didn't reduce the bezel area by 6.6% when moving to the larger display size, they simply increased the size of the display.
1a) Bezels aren't fixed but there but there sizes are partly determined by the type of the display panel used, how much structure needs to be included to support the device and components, and engineering prowess. This last one can be smaller or larger depending on the quality. For example, there have been plenty of UltraBooks that felt flimsy* because they wanted to make it lighter and smaller and there is the Panasonic ToughBooks that are made more durable and therefore are larger and thicker. The better built machines in this example is the thicker one.
1b) Yes, I think bezel sizing for, say, a 3.5" and 4" phone will be pretty much the same with all other component types being equal and yet we have a report implying (or at least being inferred) as something else. We aren't talking about a watch face v 4K HDTV here.
2) I see no world where one side ends by making a hard and sharp 90° turn.
* I seem to recall a video from this year's WWDC of a notebook feel like it was going to crack in your hands. I'll see if I can locate the source.
Riiight. iOS 6 is back in play, from the looks of that mockup, LOL.
they also want no bezels and no Home Button… so they also can’t use the phone with two hands!
How does the absence of either bezel or Home button affect my ability to use two hands? Each hand cups the device the same way you would with one hand.
I think you missed the point, which is that to Fandroids, everything Apple designs, from thin-and-portable to walled gardens, is a disadvantage. Only Google can save Apple. /s
One possibility is a software-based home button a la Android, but that would be a terrible idea. No tactility,
I do not feel that the feeling of a click is more important than a common and frequent point of failure. Of the six iPhones we've owned, four had a Home button failure.
no way to press it to wake the device
I use the button on top for that already. Why do we need a Home button for that?
it takes up valuable screen real estate
!!! A software button, that can be sized and repositioned at will, is a greater space problem than a 3/4" strip of empty across the entire width of the device along the bottom with the sole purpose of housing a singe button that serves no function while using any app? Seriously?
Those are not disadvantages. There have plenty of reports regarding the weird and inconsistent nature of Android's on-screen buttons. Being a "disadvantage" in terms of that chart is pointless because the measure it pointless.
Lets remember how area works. To increase a display measure by 50% — say from 4" to 6" whilst maintaing a 16:9 aspect ratio — you are in fact more than doubling (about 2.25x) the amount of display area, yet the bezels can mostly likely stay the same thickness with this change. The iPhone 5 didn't reduce the bezel area by 6.6% when moving to the larger display size, they simply increased the size of the display.
1a) Bezels aren't fixed but there but there sizes are partly determined by the type of the display panel used, how much structure needs to be included to support the device and components, and engineering prowess. This last one can be smaller or larger depending on the quality. For example, there have been plenty of UltraBooks that felt flimsy* because they wanted to make it lighter and smaller and there is the Panasonic ToughBooks that are made more durable and therefore are larger and thicker. The better built machines in this example is the thicker one.
1b) Yes, I think bezel sizing for, say, a 3.5" and 4" phone will be pretty much the same with all other component types being equal and yet we have a report implying (or at least being inferred) as something else. We aren't talking about a watch face v 4K HDTV here.
2) I see no world where one side ends by making a hard and sharp 90° turn.
* I seem to recall a video from this year's WWDC of a notebook feel like it was going to crack in your hands. I'll see if I can locate the source.
Here you go Soli. I calculated the size of the bezels of all the devices on that list. It's not perfectly accurate because I made the calculations assuming all the devices have flat sides. The first picture shows them ordered by side bezels smallest to largest. The second is top/bottom bezels smallest to largest.
The iPhones have reasonably small side bezels as of the 5/5s, but the top and bottom bezels are relatively enormous thanks to the home button and requirement of symmetry.
I'm pretty sure that if Apple has plans to do a larger iPhone, they'll know exactly how to do it.
I agree with people who say that current bezel free concepts are ugly.
I think that the rumor of a glass that curves on the sides could be a solution to having a less sharp edge, thus making it look a lot better. But that's just speculation.
If Apple does a bigger screen, those huge samsung phones will look even more ridicule than they are.
That home button is there to stay. The iPhone will probably just keep a chin, like the iMac. It gives it a unique look.
You are imagining too much. This is just a rumor. The next iPhone won't have a flexible screen for sure.
Horrible, horrible idea. The centered round home button is one of the reasons of the success of the iPhone. It's essential.