chances of apple using virtual home

[carjakester]

In the past we have seen apple including some popular jailbreak features within their own iOS such as bitesms's quick reply in iOS 8 among many others. Do you guys think that the virtual home feature could be in iOS 8 or would it have been mentioned already?

I think it would be good because you don't have to click the home button, so they could possibly remove the assembly that allows the home button to click, allowing more space to make a thinner iPhone. It also would reduce home button failure which a lot of people have problems with. Thoughts?

 

[Armen]

In the past we have seen apple including some popular jailbreak features within their own iOS such as bitesms's quick reply in iOS 8 among many others. Do you guys think that the virtual home feature could be in iOS 8 or would it have been mentioned already?

I think it would be good because you don't have to click the home button, so they could possibly remove the assembly that allows the home button to click, allowing more space to make a thinner iPhone. It also would reduce home button failure which a lot of people have problems with. Thoughts?

I would have to say no because the home button is needed in conjunction with the Sleep/wake button in order to force restart the phone and to enter DFU mode.

We can't exactly pull our battery out like other phones that have a virtual home button when the OS freezes/doesn't respond.

Apple would have to assign another button combo to enter DFU and reboot like vol up + sleep/wake or vol down + sleep/wake before we can have a virtual home button.

I'm with you on not having to deal with buttons wearing out or breaking. Guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

 

[Nevaborn]

As said the physical Home button is required for recovery of the device should there be a software failure. Also it is part of the iconic image of the iPhone have a centralised button, Apple will not sacrifice brand identity.

 

[carjakester]

As said the physical Home button is required for recovery of the device should there be a software failure. Also it is part of the iconic image of the iPhone have a centralised button, Apple will not sacrifice brand identity.

I didnt think about the restarting part of it, but having the button not click wouldnt change the look of the iphone at all, the home button just wouldnt click.

 

[andyw715]

I like being able to (in the same motion) take my iphone 5s out of my pocket, touch id to unlock, raise up to an unlocked phone at the home screen.

Not sure I could do that by touch alone with out a physical home button.

 

[KrisLord]

We also need to wait until they can put the touchID sensor under the screen. We're not losing the home button until they can do that.

 

[cambookpro]

I don't think DFU/restore is a good enough reason alone to keep the home button - surely it could just be mapped to lock+volume up or something?

Anyway, I'd like to maybe see Apple go to a slightly recessed capacitive touch home button with TouchID. Would still easily be found by touch alone, yet doesn't make a noise when pressed and wouldn't be prone to mechanical failure.

 

[Armen]

Is my post invisible? Just curious because I touched on both topics in post #2

1- we need the home button for DFU and to force restart
2- Apple could remap the buttons to vol +/- + wake.

 

[carjakester]

Just to clarify, i am not suggesting apple gets rid of the home button. There is a tweak available for jailbroken iPhone 5s's that allows the user to use the touch id as a replacement for the clicking of a home button.

and for the DFU problem, with the rumors of a side mounted lock button possible, the new button combo to reset could be lock + both volume buttons.

 

[carjakester]

so it turns out they did. Not sure if you can use it for anything other than the reachability though.

 

[53kyle]

Yeah, well now there is reachability, so if they did a virtual home button, they'll have to change how to get into the switcher.

 

[Traverse]

My first thought when they presented reachability was "I wish they'd allow us to customize that." I would love to just touch the ID sensor and have it respond. I don't mind pressing it to wake the phone, but think about it. You press that home button 50+, 100+, 200+ times a day! It's bound to break. Every iOS device I've ever owned gets a creaky button after so long. I was so happy when they released the iPads close app and app switcher gesture.

You can by pass the home button using the accessibility option, but then you get that annoying square hovering over everything.

 

[Zxxv]

As said the physical Home button is required for recovery of the device should there be a software failure. Also it is part of the iconic image of the iPhone have a centralised button, Apple will not sacrifice brand identity.

I'd argue that kinda brand identity has gone now with the removal of the square on the home button