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Could Force Touch mean the removal of the home button on the iPhone 7?

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macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 10, 2014
100
26
Manchester, England
I don't know much about Force Touch as I'm not interested in an Apple Watch. But from what I've seen does anyone think it could be a glimpse of the future in an 18 months away iPhone 7?

If you could 'press down' on the screen to emulate what the home button does now then the bezels could be slimmed down while increasing the screen size to ~5.2" without actually changing the physical size of the phone.

The only prob is integrating Touch ID into the screen. Is that poss in the timescale? How far along are Apple with that?
 
It's intriguing, but how would you deal with unwanted "force touches" while the phone is in a pocket or purse? Would you take away the wake function of the home button?
 
The only way I see the total removal of the physical home button happening is if they somehow find a way to make the entire screen sapphire. The TouchID sensor would have to be in the screen and Apple wouldn't (I hope?) release a new phone if touchID could be rendered useless with a couple minor scratches

That said, I REALLY hope they do this. The 6 plus made me a believer and a liar. I said I would never want a bigger phone and here I am with this gorgeous 5.5" display. If the "smaller" model keeps the same form factor as the 6 and goes from 4.7" to 5ish...and is full HD, that would be the ideal phone.

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chabig said:
It's intriguing, but how would you deal with unwanted "force touches" while the phone is in a pocket or purse? Would you take away the wake function of the home button?
Click to expand...

If I understand force touch correctly, it can tell if it is a finger and the action is actually a "finger press" as opposed to a butt press or something.

If it can't, they can always do customized wake gestures, like a double tap or pattern that's less likely to activate the phone. Or like you said, just ditch the wake function all together and go with TouchID in the screen to wake/unlock.
 
That would be really cool if they could do it with the 4.7" screen and make it smaller! I'd accept a phone with a bigger screen if it were the same size as my 5.
 
chabig said:
It's intriguing, but how would you deal with unwanted "force touches" while the phone is in a pocket or purse? Would you take away the wake function of the home button?
Click to expand...

Don't have to. You can accidentally press the home button and wake the screen in your pocket. So nothing has changed. I like the idea.
 
Bloodraw850 said:
What about the finger print scanner?
Click to expand...


I keep seeing people clamoring for TouchID in the screen, but capacitive touch in the screen is a very different technology than the high resolution camera/scanner-type capture used by TouchID. Until an alternative form of ID becomes available, the home button combo scanner is really the only logical option. Sure, they could maybe shrink it, but then it wouldn't accommodate all fingerprint diameters either.
 
I think the Home button will be like the Force Touch trackpad in the new MacBook. It feels the pressure, and vibrates to make you believe you pressed a button. No moving parts.

I don't understand the desire to completely remove the home button.
 
I like the way it is, don't confuse me Apple.

I seem to remember an older phone, I believe the Blackberry's when I owned them, having double tap or tap and hold. Kinda of remember not liking it. :)
 
I think the home button is here to stay.

It's their design. If they wanted it gone, they could have long ago. Heck, they could have even made it so that the button was just a capacitive one if they wanted.
 
If it changes, all I can see happening is the mechanical click is removed, replacing with the tactic feedback, like in the new MacBook trackpad.
 
chabig said:
It's intriguing, but how would you deal with unwanted "force touches" while the phone is in a pocket or purse? Would you take away the wake function of the home button?
Click to expand...

They's deal with it the same way your ear and cheek don't cause unwanted presses when you talk on the phone. The screen "knows" where and how it's being touched.
 
Nikhil72 said:
I keep seeing people clamoring for TouchID in the screen, but capacitive touch in the screen is a very different technology than the high resolution camera/scanner-type capture used by TouchID. Until an alternative form of ID becomes available, the home button combo scanner is really the only logical option. Sure, they could maybe shrink it, but then it wouldn't accommodate all fingerprint diameters either.
Click to expand...

Not saying that it will happen on the iPhone 7 (I don't think it will) and not saying that all of Apple's patents make it into consumer products, but they do have a patent for embedding the fingerprint sensor into the screen. It's probably possible, just depends on how well it works, yield on components, how expensive it is etc: http://appleinsider.com/articles/15...fingerprint-sensors-into-touchscreen-displays

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NewbieCanada said:
They's deal with it the same way your ear and cheek don't cause unwanted presses when you talk on the phone. The screen "knows" where and how it's being touched.
Click to expand...

That's just because there's a proximity sensor and the phone's screen shuts off and is locked when you're calling someone and you hold it to your ear. It's nothing to do with the screen knowing where and how it's being touched unfortunately.
 
I'd rather have my thumb print on my home button than all over my screen. Otherwise, there will be hundreds of "How do you wipe your phone?" threads popping up. My answer would always be "front to back" of course.
 
If they make the entire front of the phone Force Touch they could shrink the bezels but leave enough room for JUST the finger print sensor with some screen overlap and not have the physical button. If they did that just loosely judging by eye they could shave off another centimeter or 2 depending on how wide the camera lens of the touch ID sensor shoots.
 
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