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How would a "virtual" home button work?

martin2345uk

martin2345uk

macrumors 65832
Original poster
Jan 6, 2013
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Essex
So there are always rumours going round that the next iPhone, or maybe the one after, will have the home button within the touchscreen itself.

How would that actually work? How would the screen know you're not trying to press one of the app icons for example rather than the home button? Would there be some indication on the screen of which "area" is the home button?

Sorry if that's a stupid question, I'm just curious!
 
Everyone is curious actually cause we are all not that creative to imagine how it would work in the next iPhone.
But, based on what we have right now, it would be very difficult to add virtual home button if physical one is removed.
And I wish Apple don't remove this symbolic button from iPhone cause without it, iPhone is of no difference with all other phones other than the logo in the back.
 
It could just be an icon on the screen and the haptic feedback would go off when pressed. The iPhone 7 is essentially using this mechanism it's just that it's still a separate element from the screen. The home button is no longer a button but a simulated one. Moving to a virtual button will help decrease the overall footprint of the device.
 
Shirasaki said:
And fewer people can recognise an iPhone in a glance.
Not really a drawback though.
Click to expand...

True but I think Apple will implement the iconic home button into the virtual one. I'm all for reducing the size of the phone especially for the plus.
 
i use the assistive touch as basically my virtual home button. i love that thing.

now, if they wanted to implement it into something that's not always on screen, they could just as easily add it to the control center. on the current control center, there are 5 functions across the top and 4 across the bottom. they could just make the bottom row have a 5th function (adding home button to the middle between the timer and the calculator icons); just need to shrink the square icons or make them circular like the top row.
 
martin2345uk said:
So there are always rumours going round that the next iPhone, or maybe the one after, will have the home button within the touchscreen itself.

How would that actually work? How would the screen know you're not trying to press one of the app icons for example rather than the home button? Would there be some indication on the screen of which "area" is the home button?

Sorry if that's a stupid question, I'm just curious!
Click to expand...

I'm guessing there will be some force touch to wake anywhere on the screen, touchID under the screen,glass in one specific place. Not sure how "going home" from a full screen app would work, or how mutitasking would work
 
malevolant said:
Not sure how "going home" from a full screen app would work, or how mutitasking would work
Click to expand...
force touch from left side of screen brings up multitasking so that's covered.

as for "going home" when app is open, i'm really surprised they havent implemented a hold-finger-on-touchID to go home function (when a touchID dialog like authorizing app purchase isn't shown, of course). seems like such an obvious thing to have.
 
I would not mind an Android style bar at the bottom if it meant claiming some of the phone's size for a larger screen and less bezel. I much prefer the virtual buttons on Android because I feel they are more responsive than the capacitive ones.

I would not be opposed to just moving the home button to the side like Sony's phones or to the back like Google/Huawei. Especially on the Plus it would be easier to reach.

But purely as a virtual button I suppose 3D touch would be the most obvious implementation. Press hard enough at the bottom of the screen and you go home or something.
 
Since multitasking is activated with force touch from the left side of the screen, then why not use force touch from the bottom of the screen to go back to the home screen? It would be similar to swiping apps away from the multitasking screen itself.
 
How are they gonna pick up the finger print with such virtual button is the question.
 
Mrbobb said:
How are they gonna pick up the finger print with such virtual button is the question.
Click to expand...

Probably read it from the pixels the finger is resting on. That doesn't seem too incredibly difficult to do if you had a more precise touch screen.
 
The touch ID sensor is not transparent so I do not see how they could manage to get it to be a screen.
 
beernut said:
force touch from left side of screen brings up multitasking so that's covered.

as for "going home" when app is open, i'm really surprised they havent implemented a hold-finger-on-touchID to go home function (when a touchID dialog like authorizing app purchase isn't shown, of course). seems like such an obvious thing to have.
Click to expand...

Aleh said:
Since multitasking is activated with force touch from the left side of the screen, then why not use force touch from the bottom of the screen to go back to the home screen? It would be similar to swiping apps away from the multitasking screen itself.
Click to expand...

malevolant said:
I just had one of those "woah" moments when it worked on my phone. 0.o I didn't know that worked!
Click to expand...

WHOA. I have to pay more attention. This is awesome!

sekazi said:
The touch ID sensor is not transparent so I do not see how they could manage to get it to be a screen.
Click to expand...

That's the secret sauce no doubt :)
 
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