Home button on iPhone 6s

[PricklyPete]

Anyone know if the home button is still a physical button or if it is some kind of implementation of Force touch with just haptic feedback?

 

[Riverhound777]

It's the same as the 6, still physical.

 

[PricklyPete]

It's the same as the 6, still physical.

Sigh...seems like this would be a good application of their force touch and would remove another fail point/weather concern.

 

[PowerRanger]

Sigh...seems like this would be a good application of their force touch and would remove another fail point/weather concern.

That's probably the direction they're going. Maybe on the iPhone 7 we'll see the home button being replaced by force touch.

 

[TheStu]

That's probably the direction they're going. Maybe on the iPhone 7 we'll see the home button being replaced by force touch.

A few years back there was talk about them putting the fingerprint reader into the display layer itself. Apple usually takes a few years to go from initial mumblings like that to putting it into any products, so maybe that's the 7. Or, maybe it's nothing because they found a different/better solution.

I'd be all for it, especially if the 4" form factor is utterly toast. The screen size of the iPhone 6/6s is fine, but the body is too big.

 

[PricklyPete]

A few years back there was talk about them putting the fingerprint reader into the display layer itself. Apple usually takes a few years to go from initial mumblings like that to putting it into any products, so maybe that's the 7. Or, maybe it's nothing because they found a different/better solution.



I'd be all for it, especially if the 4" form factor is utterly toast. The screen size of the iPhone 6/6s is fine, but the body is too big.

Agreed, the bottom bezel has a lot of wasted space. A physical button just seems more and more unnecessary at this point....but I'm sure Apple has their reasons at this point.

 

[TheStu]

Agreed, the bottom bezel has a lot of wasted space. A physical button just seems more and more unnecessary at this point....but I'm sure Apple has their reasons at this point.

I appreciate having the actual tactile feedback of the button (interesting to note that although they eschew them, Apple's buttons are often quite excellent feeling).

That said, the feedback on the rMB thoroughly fooled me, so maybe they can get away with it now.

 

[Red Storm]

I'm sure as soon as the tech is consumer ready we'll see companies move the fingerprint scanner onto the display itself. Force Touch could be used as a way to turn on the display too, which would be one less need for the physical home button (though tap to wake already takes care of this).

iPhone certainly does need to lose some bezel thickness though, and not just on the top and bottoms. The sides are thick too compared to Android flagships.

 

[Commodus]

Having that physical button does offer a nice ease-of-use element. It's the "escape hatch" -- no matter what you're doing, no matter what apps are showing on screen, you know where that button will take you. I don't know that it needs to be as large as it is (though the surface probably helps a bit with fingerprint recognition).

As for the side bezels? Well, I'm torn. A narrower phone might be nice, but one of the things I like about the iPhone 6/6s is the ease of swiping in from the side. Losing that would be a step backward.

 

[Red Storm]

That's really no different than a software home button. You know where it will take you too.

Side bezels don't need to be thick to allow side swiping, not at all. As long as the side is smooth and doesn't have a raised bezel, you can swipe in from the side just fine.

 

[Commodus]

That's really no different than a software home button. You know where it will take you too.

Side bezels don't need to be thick to allow side swiping, not at all. As long as the side is smooth and doesn't have a raised bezel, you can swipe in from the side just fine.

Thing is, Android sometimes hides the software home button... and if you design an interface that doesn't, it reduces your available screen area. I don't mind software home buttons much at all, but I'm thinking about the neophyte who's shouting "ack, where do I go?" -- the person who just wants a reliable way to get back to a familiar location in the interface. And that happens more often than you'd think.

 

[mrochester]

The front mounted physical home button is one of the better aspect of the iPhone in comparison to the competition. It is so much easier to have a button right up front to press to wake the device instead of having to fumble for awkwardly placed side mounted power buttons or unreliable double tap to wake screen gestures. I hope Apple continue to keep a way to reliably wake your device front and centre.