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Apple to Remove Home Button From Future iPads and iPhones?

Sadly this strikes me as just another example of Steve Jobs' Ego telling him to do away with all tactile buttons just to do it.... :(

Personally, I'd like MORE real buttons with assignable functions, not to mention some built-in gamepads on the iPad. Has Steve ever heard of "function keys" and what they're for? Gestures alone don't cut it, IMO. Quite frankly, I find that in many Apps I often inadvertently and unintentionally activate a "gesture" which then wreaks havoc on whatever it is I'm doing (e.g. one book reading app comes to mind whereby page turns and menu pop-ups tend to activate while I'm just trying to scroll the text down in a relaxed book-reading kind of way).

There are also many moments when I'd find the option of a slide-out real keyboard very useful. Touch-screen typing is still more hap-hazard than tactile, IMO. Sadly, you only get "one model" from Apple and few choices these days even in the Mac models. I'd really like to see some licensed "clones" offer the choices Apple doesn't want to offer. Sure, there's Android, but in both cases it's the operating system that makes Apple products special, not the specific hardware, per se.
 
dbales said:
Should also point that Apple screwed the pooch with the latest Nano by miniaturizing it the point of being worse than the previous gen.

Leave the Home button, Apple. Work on making the iPhone/iPad/iTouch more useful in other ways.
Click to expand...

Not sure how Apple "screwed the pooch." Apple obviously wanted people who desired a multimedia player to migrate to the touch and to bring the Nano back to its music roots. Made sense to me.
 
Trius said:
It floors me every time something like this comes up and so many people are like "OMG don't change anything!!! It wont work! They would NEVER do something so stupid!!!!!!"....../sigh.... It's the same people that thought a touchscreen keyboard would never work, or voice dialing, or a mouse, or automobiles that run without horses....

I trust whatever :apple: plans to do with this. I look forward to change, whatever it may be, because I know the engineers at :apple: are experts at what they do. Lose the button :apple:.... lets see what you've got next :cool:

Innovation = Change, people.
Click to expand...

I would love to see you try a 4 or 5 finger multi touch gesture while holding it with the same hand. Come on think before you post.:confused:
Yeah innovation people instead of being able to use one hand and operate every feature now you would need both hands. Come on that's not moving forward but backwards;)
 
My 1 year old son uses my ipad and plays kids games and he actually can navigate the ipad pretty good, knowing that if a certain game frustrates him, he could hit the home button and exit. Because of these games a kid that should have a 5-10 word vocabulary is up to 30-40 words...this is a great teaching tool, but gestures makes it much tougher for kids to navigate themselves.
 
Apples done such a great job with the touch screen that it never made sense & always seemed old tech, to have one big ugly mechanical button. Apple is very thoughtful yet conservative within their engineering dept.

Once they saw Samsung's success with a beautiful button free display on the Galaxy S & others, it gave Apple the confidence they needed to realize an iPhone & iPad will be fine without the relic of old tech.
 
This would be pretty cool on the iPad.

But no. Just no. There is no way they are going to mess up the iPhone by taking away the home button.

They could just make it like other phones. You know how some devices just have that little house symbol under the screen that you touch and it brings you to the home page? Not a button, just a symbol....

If apple wants no buttons on the iPhone then they should just replace the button with a square symbol that you tap and it brings you home.

I can totally see this on the iPad, though.
 
sounds good, if you do everything on the screen anyway it kind of breaks your flow to have to push some analog button thats not on the screen. they should have like a 4 finger swipe to the left bring up the home screen. would seem much more intuitive.
 
Apple is simply not going to prevent people with less than five usable fingers from ever being able to navigate to the Home screen! Discussion over.
 
I always thought the home button should be touch sensitive. Something along the lines of two successive clicks takes you home, so that would remove a moving part. The five finger home method, if that is what comes to fruition, will undoubtedly be heralded by some, but it's really a step backwards IMO.
 
five finger gesture... that means we have to use both hands :eek:

suppose 4 finger 1 thumb gestures don't roll off the tongue as good :rolleyes:
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

You know how Apple had troubling matching the colour of the home button with the rest of the device on the white iPhone? ... Problem solved.
 
apparently this is becoming a little too overwhelming for some people....

which device got the 4/5 finger-gestures? the iPad NOT the iPhone.
which device is ready to lose the home button? the iPad NOT the iPhone.
which device will actually feel better w/o the button? THE IPAD NOT THE IPHONE!

so stop bickering about the iPhone losing its button! they didn't even put the gestures in the iPhone build, so don't worry, you'll all be able to "go home" safely on your iPhones.

I personally agree that the iPad should lose its button now, and the iPhone later on...


[EDIT] and whatever Apple decides to do, we'll all end up getting used to it, eventhough some people will not like the change. just like when the first iPod was out, and when the 1st iPad was out.... how many jokes each of those products got back then?
 
I was actually hoping Apple would develop more on the home button and give that rounded square in it a fadey blue light when I have a notification.

Oh well.
 
Trius said:
It floors me every time something like this comes up and so many people are like "OMG don't change anything!!! It wont work! They would NEVER do something so stupid!!!!!!"....../sigh.... It's the same people that thought a touchscreen keyboard would never work, or voice dialing, or a mouse, or automobiles that run without horses....

I trust whatever :apple: plans to do with this. I look forward to change, whatever it may be, because I know the engineers at :apple: are experts at what they do. Lose the button :apple:.... lets see what you've got next :cool:

Innovation = Change, people.
Click to expand...

What can I say i'm becoming a Ludite in my old age (over35).
Think about how much of iOS can be accessed with each a number of fingers.
one finger say 80%.
two fingers say 95-99% (dependent of 3rd party apps)
three fingers up adds specialist function and speed improvements for longer term users.

If you put a four finger road block in front of the all function. Then how can that be considered good change.

foiden said:
(And that button on the top of the unit (not the home button) is how all *power-related* things are already handled. It puts it to sleep, wakes it up, powers it down, and powers it up.)
Click to expand...

The top button doesn't do the job in the same way.
 
am i one of the few that doesnt want the home button removed from the iPad? its a staple to iOS (excluding aTV).
 
ok, people, keep your buttons.... let's see what you'll do when we advance in technology to actually lose the whole thing except for the glass or just virtual projections and go "Avatar-syle" with gadgets and computers.... you would all scream, "Please don't take out the one button that saves us!!!"

seriously, it's called technology's evolution, and Apple is the god of evolution in technology... we have to go through them again, and again... floppy disks, clunky mp3-players with buttons everywhere, cellphone keyboards, and soon CDs and DVD disks... and YES, even the Sacred Home Button will also be extinct! live with that! the horrroorrrr!!

*shivers in fright under the blankets*
 
If they want more glass space, maybe they can move the home button to the left or right side of the phone. Or, perhaps they can move it to a corner of the front glass.

Could they use the power button to do multiple function? Press once for power on (and after it's on press once to go home). Press twice for something else. Press and hold for power down/reboot options?

I'm actually ok with the round home button where it is. I prefer function over design. It's a 4" screen, and getting it to a 4.3" is not worth losing the home button. How would anyone know that pinching with five fingers takes you to the home screen? It's like removing the "q" on our keyboard, because we don't use it much, and having to use a key combination to type the letter.
 
ThE.MeSsEnGeR said:
ok, people, keep your buttons.... let's see what you'll do when we advance in technology to actually lose the whole thing except for the glass or just virtual projections and go "Avatar-syle" with gadgets and computers.... you would all scream, "Please don't take out the one button that saves us!!!"
Click to expand...

The Avatar GUI still has keyboards, mouses, Joystick and other physical control devices where important for the plot.

Just say'n.

Keeping sensible things from the "past" does nothing to stop the future.
Well it might stop the "futuristic" future and change for change sake but that is a good thing.
 
ThE.MeSsEnGeR said:
ok, people, keep your buttons.... let's see what you'll do when we advance in technology to actually lose the whole thing except for the glass or just virtual projections and go "Avatar-syle" with gadgets and computers.... you would all scream, "Please don't take out the one button that saves us!!!"

seriously, it's called technology's evolution, and Apple is the god of evolution in technology... we have to go through them again, and again... floppy disks, clunky mp3-players with buttons everywhere, cellphone keyboards, and soon CDs and DVD disks... and YES, even the Sacred Home Button will also be extinct! live with that! the horrroorrrr!!

*shivers in fright under the blankets*
Click to expand...

They can't remove ALL buttons, or how exactly would you wake the device? Would the touch-screen always be active? How then would you prevent the iPad's screen being activated by every single touch, including when it's in its case and touching the case's inside.

Not all changes are evolution, some just don't make sense. Which is why I think this rumour is inaccurate, or completely unfounded.
 
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