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I hate physical button, I love virtual control
- Thread starter Nanasaki
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Obviously you're not a developer. Implementing those gestures on a virtual button is child's play.
Agreed, the virtual buttons on Nexus/Android devices are awful. They had me second guessing and always being conscious of where I was tapping the screen so I wouldn't throw myself out of an app by accident for the thousandth time.
Like it for everything except multitasking. I don't know why Apple hasn't implemented a gesture for that yet. Right-to-left would work perfectly because when you go into multitasking, it shifts the app to the left.
Long time Nexus user since the Google Galaxy Nexus (sold for Nexus 4, planing go for Nexus 5). Never had any accident tapping. I love the virtual keuboard, much efficient and I don't have to deal with bad physical button... The home button is broken on my old iPad 1... It us extremely annoying.
Lucky you. The amount of times I accidentally tapped home when trying to hit the spacebar on the keyboard drove me crazy.
I just read up on this. Apparently it is possible to assign a triple tap behavior to a button but I haven't seen it implemented anywhere (yet)
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I for one use the home button to wake up my phone not the sleep/power button. I'm afraid if they did implement a virtual home button that the only way to make it responsive is to wake it up with the power/sleep button. I think the Samsung S4 is like this. I forget. unless you push the top button the 4 virtual buttons on the bottom don't react to touch.
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There are better way to wake up the device rather than home button. For example: Motto X always on, LG tap twice to wake up the phone, BlackBerry's swipe up gesture, use of proximity sensor, use accelerometer to sense up movement of the devices... etc.
In fact, it is time to implementing smarter way to wake up the device.
Moto X: If this is always on does that mean the screen is always on? I don't follow.
LG: Tap 2 times is a good idea. I just wonder how many accidental 2 times will happen when phone is in your pocket.
BB: There are numerous threads in the Blackberry forums about users complaining how their phone will rub against their leg and unlock. I'm not a fan of this method.
Motto X has a coprocessor always listening to user voice input...of you speak to motto x it will response to you
As for LG... I do not know since I don't have one.
What I think the best method is using accelerometr sensor user picking up the phone..
I think the LG is the best. I would hate to talk to my device all the time, which is why I rarely use siri or voice control on my mac.
How would you keep the accelerometer from registering just picking up the device for natural movment. I would hate to have the phone come alive everytime I moved it. Say picking it up to leave the room, house, go from desk to another desk. It better have a very quick time out period or I would think the battery life would suffer.
When I switched to an Android to try it once, I couldn't get it to wake except for the power button, or the volume button (which I think is a better way), but it was something that was hard to get used to after years with an iPhone, also it was hard to just "feel" the home button with virtual and always made me look or end up hitting the wrong button several times. I ended up switching back to an iPhone, but mainly as the device was just too buggy (I understand from others that had the same device and have since moved on that the improvements made are vast). I may someday be back on one as I use what suits me best, not what is the status quo.
Oh Ok. There was a Siri Jailbreak tweak that did the same thing. The iPhone would listen so when you said "Siri" it would activate Siri.
Perhaps smarter, but not necessarily more convenient. I like the home button. It's straightforward, functional (incl. Touch ID) and cannot be misinterpreted. A virtual button seems to be unnecessarily gimmicky.
The Galaxy S4 has a physical home button. I would think it would work like the Galaxy S3 where you can press the physical home button to wake the phone.
My complaint is that I often turn off my BB phone when I leave work as it is my work phone. I often find that I accidentally turn it on, so after a weekend, the phone is almost out of power. I find that just too easy to accidentally turn on a BB phone.
How is it gimmicky when virtual button is not prone to break and much more efficient than physical button? When you have broken home button you know how annoying it is...
OK... That is good to know.... There gonna be some intellgiant way to wake up devices without touching the device... This is particular useful when you are driving or when your hand isn't available..
Prime example of why Apple changes nothing. Users are so set in their ways that they defend the old technology. Almost every objection is "a virtual button can't do this...." and almost every comment is inaccurate.
I guess we can't complain that Apple never changes when users defend the status quo.
I guess we can't complain that Apple never changes when users defend the status quo.
Hate to rain on your parade but Apple is testing 4.8" - 5.8" screens for the upcoming iPhone 6 according to most tech sites.
I noticed a lot of people on this site hoping for a bigger screen with the 5s, but not yet. When the larger screen is implemented, the "4 inch is perfect" crowd will line up for the new iPhone. That's fine. I know that all companies would love to have that sort of brand loyalty.
Physical Home Button:
I owned a few Samsung tablets before buying an iPad 4. I was constantly hitting the capacitive buttons accidentally, and the raised home button just looked dumb. I think Apple's home button could use a redesign, but at least it doesn't protrude above the tablet/phone. We just bought 3 HTC One phones, after having one iPhone 5s. The HTC's two virtual buttons have never been hit unintentionally, and a hard restart is accomplished by holding the power/wake button down for several seconds. A notification appears on the screen, and counts down the final few seconds. It's the only Android device I've ever liked, and it just works. I also own a rMBP, a Mini, an iPod 5G, and we have two iPad 4's. It still takes a few seconds to get used to the iPod's lack of hand gesture response, but the HTC lacks that as well. Still waiting to meet the perfect device, but I'm open to new features on any device.
The problem I have with the physical home button is that it is almost always the first thing to break on the device. It is almost like that home button is the built-in 18 month obsolescence factor.
Edit: reading all the replies, including ones by the OP, I notice others feel same. That damn button almost always stops functioning...rather quickly IMO.
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Exactly.
Edit: reading all the replies, including ones by the OP, I notice others feel same. That damn button almost always stops functioning...rather quickly IMO.
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Exactly.
A buddy of mines phone froze one day, and I couldn't, for the life of me get it to fix itself. He has a Sumsung or somethin... not too sure. maybe a Note.
But the thing I absolutely LOVE about my iPhone is the home button. I like that if something is frozen, or acting up, I can use a physical button to get a response. If the virtual stuff is frozen, that would make your home button unresponsive.
Not sure how it works but the virtual buttons on the Nexus remain responsive even if app freezes.
Even if they did freeze you would just hold the power button to reset the phone, every phone with virtual button has a hardware way to reset the phone.