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I'm just relieved apple is not wasting space on the screen by adding a virtual home button. Gestures is a much more elegant solution than putting a single circle below the dock. We may as well have just kept the physical button if that was the final design. Thankfully it's not. Faith restored.

im afraid for Apple here. Removing the home button is asking for trouble. Just watch. Most users aren't what you think they are.
 
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I just can't see my mother (or any older person) being comfortable with an iPhone that doesn't have an obvious "home" button, even if it's a virtual one drawn in the same place on the screen as the hardware one.
No problem, clearly your mother should get an iPhone 7s then, which will be the phone selling in crazy numbers, and will have a clearly identifiable Home button (even though it no longer physically presses, since the 7 - it's all captouch and haptics now). And careful generalizing about "any older person" - some are very clueful about tech, others aren't.

People keep complaining about rumored features on the "iPhone 8", as though it is the iPhone getting released next month - it will not be the mainstream phone sold by Apple in the tens of millions this fall - that'll be the 7s and 7s+. The "iPhone 8" (sigh, it won't be called that, but everyone keeps saying it), will be more like the Apple Watch Edition (looked at by many, bought by few), with availability closer to that of the AirPods.
 
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Just a thought, but perhaps access to the home screen is a swipe down from the notch area. Given that's the only static and always present area of the screen.

Then again, that area is full sensors, which might make this impossible.

How exactly is "swipe down" not a hidden gesture? The entire problem of where iPhone/IOS is going is all these hidden things that have no affordances, but you're just suppoed to know about them somehow.
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No problem, clearly your mother should get an iPhone 7s then, which will be the phone selling in crazy numbers, and will have a clearly identifiable Home button (even though it no longer physically presses, since the 7 - it's all captouch and haptics now). And careful generalizing about "any older person" - some are very clueful about tech, others aren't.

People keep complaining about rumored features on the "iPhone 8", as though it is the iPhone getting released next month - it will not be the mainstream phone sold by Apple in the tens of millions this fall - that'll be the 7s and 7s+. The "iPhone 8" (sigh, it won't be called that, but everyone keeps saying it), will be more like the Apple Watch Edition (looked at by many, bought by few), with availability closer to that of the AirPods.

If you think people won't buy the "8" in droves, you're really not connected to reality. The 7s will be the 4th year of the "6" form factor, and many, many people will want something different as the new one.
 
I honestly think this is a great idea. Since downloading iOS 11 on my iPad the only time I really ever use the home button is for Touch ID and unlock the device, but facial recognition combined with tap/raise to wake should solve that use case for me. It’ll take a little getting used to, but I’m excited!
 
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I have an incredibly difficult time believing Apple would actually settle on a final design with that obnoxious "U-shaped" area by the earpiece digging into the display area. It's an eyesore. My guess is that they flatten out the display area and run it right below the earpiece.
 
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i don't know why everyone keeps forcing the clock in their mockup, it's going to go away, and you access it in notification center.

I still believe they’ll hide the clock if you’re wearing an Apple Watch. I’m mean, it’s just so obvious. Also, now that’s I’m running iOS 11 beta and noticed that the clock is there in the Notification Center Notification area on (as opposed to widget area) on first swipe down I don’t really know why it’s necessary to have on screen most of the time (unless an app is hiding it).

A clock is something that should be available as an incidental piece of information, not something you should have to take an action to see.

I don’t see how rotating ones wrist is going to be perceptually slower.

Do you really not understand the difference between doing nothing to see the time, vs. having to raise your arm (possibly having to put down whatever you might have in your hand) to see it? The difference is literally in the explanation; doing nothing vs. doing something. You may think that it's not that big of a difference, or that you personally don't have a problem with it, but it is in fact objectively a different thing.
 
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I would prefer this as well, but based on a picture from Home pod software Apple is fully embracing the notch.
This has to be very close to the final design. No way they settle on that obnoxious "U-shaped" notch at the top of the display.
 
Strongly agree. Apple has been reducing usability steadily ever since they shed skeumohism, which is when a hardware design expert started pretending he was skilled at software user experience design. Getting rid of the home button is that final step in eliminating what made the iPhone so approachable to so many. It's a sad day if true.

Approachable, yes, but all along Jobs wanted to design a phone that was just a screen with no buttons. The main reason for a physical button was in case a reset was needed. I am hesitant to judge before we have even seen it, although I do wonder how you get to control center if swiping up will be to get to home.

As technology becomes more ubiquitous to all generations, I think tech companies will have more leeway with these shortcuts.
 
im afraid for Apple here. Removing the home button is asking for trouble. Just watch. Most users aren't what you think they are.

I think you underestimate most iOS users, even the ones that happen to be very young or very old. :)
 
I have an incredibly difficult time believing Apple would actually settle on a final design with that obnoxious "U-shaped" area by the earpiece digging into the display area. It's an eyesore. My guess is that they flatten out the display area and run it right below the earpiece.

Either that or Samsung already has the advertisements in the can: "With our phones you get to see the WHOLE display." It will show movies with a chunk taken out of the side.
 
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The way I look at the thumbnail, is that it's the screen cutout, not necessarily how the screen will look powered on and in various apps.
I hope your right. If apple were to use that space strictly for time, service, etc it would make sense to have it always black. The notch would be invisible, so whats the point of apple showing this? Anyway, we will find out soon enough.
 
If you think people won't buy the "8" in droves, you're really not connected to reality. The 7s will be the 4th year of the "6" form factor, and many, many people will want something different as the new one.
Questions of my connection to reality aside, yes, many people will buy the "8" - not nearly as many as will buy the 7s, because availability will be much more limited, and the price will be much higher. The percentage of readers of Apple rumors websites who go for the "8" will skew quite a bit higher than the general population, many of whom will say, "oh, that looks cool - six week wait? - $1300? - GTFO!".

I don't expect Apple has the parts availability to build the "8" at the rates they've built their previous models - that's part of the plan: for years, Apple has been limited in phone design by what they can build at a rate of nearly half a million every day, to sell at essentially one price point, in terms of both cost and parts availability. They're finally expanding the lineup to have a separate flagship model that can use parts they can't get in quantity half-million-a-day, and that they can sell for much more than the standard model (thus allowing for the cost of all those fancy parts). We don't really have a standardized definition of what quantity "droves" represents, but, yes, they'll sell a lot of "8"s. But the large majority of phones they sell in the next year will be the 7s/7s+. Anyway, your original concern was your mother not being able to figure out the virtual home button, and my answer stands: no problem, have her get a 7s rather than trying to get an "8" - if she really can't understand a virtual home button (she might surprise you), chances are the other fancy features of the "8" will be lost on her anyway (or at least not worth the many hundreds of dollars extra it'll cost).

My other point stands also - many people are debating the implementation/sanity of features on the "8" as though it's the only phone Apple will be releasing. The "8" will not be the main iPhone being sold over the next year. It'll get huge mindshare/press, but it won't sell as well as the 7s.

FWIW, I'm looking forward to the 7s to replace my 6 - it'll look basically the same (don't care), but with everything vastly improved (way faster everything, more memory, better camera, better screen, more water resistance, etc.).
 
Like others have said, hopefully the notch is sandwiched between a black status bar. Since it’s OLED it would eek out a little more battery as well, but it also just looks a lot better. This will be an interesting update for sure. I just preordered the Note 8 since I got a huge discount for buying a Note 7 last year. I will either sell it and get the iPhone 8 or keep the Note 8. It all depends on 9/12.
 
I've read that Apple plan not to hide the camera cut out on the iPhone 8.

This'll probably explain why some images show a white screen (because it won't matter whether it's black or white).

Kind of sucks. Making the screen black with blacked out OLED sections is the prettier option in my view.
 
and how would we return to the home screen?
Maybe 3D Touch at that bottom line. That or maybe one of the multitasking "spaces" is always the home screen. The problem is that it puts it an extra tap away. Although I will say that using my iPad Pro 10.5" all summer on iOS 11, I don't use the home screen as much anymore now that I can multitask with the dock to my most used apps and my recents/continuity is at the end. But there isn't as much room for that on the iPhone. But I wonder if at some point the home screen will have less emphasis put on it and if this might be a slow start to that transition.
 
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