iOS 11 Dock and Gesture Controls to Replace 'iPhone 8' Home Button Entirely

[JM]

Hands up who can remember when Apple championed ergonomics and ease of use over their unnecessarily complicated competition? Let's hope this isn't true. Or it could be one step backwards too far this time. Not everybody is a geek ... people who bought the iphone were anything but. Apple used to pride themselves in being different to their rivals. Now the vision is dissipating and complexity is being introduced to distract from innovation. Or rather... the lack of it.

Yep.

I was in a apple store and a woman was getting her mac mini worked at at the genius bar. She got a text on her phone with two-factor alert. She kept trying to press the alert to open it...

Noooooo, you're supposed to SLIIIIIIDE it. It was then and there when I realized that iOS is not designed for simplicity anymore.

I agree with your post. "Let's kill the home button to make it more complicated for everyone." - un-challenged software engineers. You need a visionary to lead, and a person willing to challenge ideas.

Someone should make the "simple" phone again.

And at that keynote, the CEO should get up there and say, "all that confusing interface, and sliding, and you never know WHAT to do with it! YUCK!"

 

[Narg]

Hands up who can remember when Apple championed ergonomics and ease of use over their unnecessarily complicated competition? Let's hope this isn't true. Or it could be one step backwards too far this time. Not everybody is a geek ... people who bought the iphone were anything but. Apple used to pride themselves in being different to their rivals. Now the vision is dissipating and complexity is being introduced to distract from innovation. Or rather... the lack of it.

I can't agree more! Apple started moving backwards with removing ports that folks wanted, and didn't get in the way of anything. Now this madness?

All I can say is, I miss Steve Jobs.
[doublepost=1504097324][/doublepost]

....
Someone should make the "simple" phone again.

I don't really like Android a lot, but I've started looking. The new Nokia looks promising. There's a company that gets simplicity and "just works" mentalities.

 

[Appleaker]

The screen is reportedly flat like previous iPhones... around the phone which the glass curves into"

Ummmm

The glass still curves, like the iPhone 6, 6S, and 7

 

[recoil80]

The problem with gestures is that they not intuitive for many people. I use them all the time. But my parents? When they’re baffled by their iOS device, there’s always that one button they can hit. Now, when they’re stuck, the solution will be to swipe a finger up from the bottom. And why are they supposed to think of that? There’s no cue that this is an available action. You have to already know about it.

You're making a good point. The home button has been there for 10 years, everybody know that you can press it to exit the application and go back to the main screen.
Swiping from the bottom is not intuitive at all, it will take time for some people to get used to it. But that's the price we have to pay if we want the biggest possible display.

 

[profets]

I’m really going to struggle with this. For nine years I’ve used the home button to wake my phone, my power button is very rarely used. It’s going to be a hard habit to break.

Since the 6s I’ve used raise to wake to wake the phone. Became second nature to use instead of the home button. Do you have one of the newer iPhones currently?

 

[JM]

You're making a good point. The home button has been there for 10 years, everybody know that you can press it to exit the application and go back to the main screen.
Swiping from the bottom is not intuitive at all, it will take time for some people to get used to it. But that's the price we have to pay if we want the biggest possible display.

Next we'll be shaking and squeezing our phones and staring at the optic lens and blinking three times to pull up the notification tray...

...because "naturally we all squeeze our phones hard and shake them when we're frustrated and then stare at the device dumbfounded and blinking". -Engineer thinking

 

[Appleaker]

No one takes photos at apple do they.

Well, the article said images not photos. Although photos of CAD models have shown the change and it will happen. Having 2 pressure points could indicate it being more than elongated for comfort, which doesn't really make sense, but it could be either.

 

[TrueBlou]

As far as the “notch” is concerned, I don’t really mind if it’s blended in or not. It’s still a massive improvement over the huge chunk of black atop my iPhone 7+ screen. Naturally I’d prefer it blended in, but if it’s not, no biggie.

I’m definitely all in favour of gestures instead of a virtual home button (or perhaps as well as, who knows.) But over the years with iPhone and iPad I’ve always found myself using gestures wherever they’re available to me. It just feels right on a touch based interface. But that’s just my preference.

I’m really looking forward to the official reveal, to see what we do actually end up with. Whatever it is, I don’t imagine myself complaining too much.

We whinge and moan on a semi-regular basis that Apple doesn’t do enough to push iPhone forward. Then we whinge and moan when they change too much. To hell with it, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and all that. I think we’re long overdue a major redesign to completely modernise iPhone and iOS and I’ve got reasonable confidence that Apple know what they’re doing with interfaces.

 

[Glassed Silver]

I’m so excited about this, but worried at the same time. Who else can never get Control Center to come up reliably? The phone often seems to confuse it with button input or accidental touches. I have to drag my finger quite high up and slowly/deliberately. I don’t want to have to do that every time I close an app.

Every single day. And good point. They haven't really proven that they are to be trusted with gesture recognition.

Scroll vs. Swipe is another one of those things iOS loves to misinterpret.

Glassed Silver:win

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Seems Apple is taking a big risk here. The above description sounds at least a lot more complicated than the Home button. Ease of use is why the iPhone became so popular. Start adding in new gestures and asking people to relearn how to use the iPhone and it could start making people hate their phone. I think about all the non-tech people in my life and can imagine the conversations I'll have with them.

If the report says the OLED screen blends perfectly with the bezels then that kinda confirms there wont be any white bezel model.

Except that it could mean blends color-wise, which is how you are interpreting or it could mean there is no gap between the last column of pixels and the bezel. So it doesn't confirm anything, just reconfirms existing rumors regarding edge-to-edge pixels.

 

[Appleaker]

That's almost a deal-breaker for me. Don't think I'll be able to ignore it when using the phone and it also sticks out like a sore thumb when the screen is off on the silver variant.

It will likely be black on all models. Don't use dummy models as an indication of color, they are guessing.

 

[iapplelove]

I don't mind the top cut out. I'm really digging the possible leaks and have not been excited over an iPhone since my 6 plus.

 

[Liquid Galaxy]

This might sound pedantic but if Apple uses stainless steel edges then this won't be a buy for me. The old iPods and the recent Apple watches show that the scratches this material picks up is beyond ridiculous and after a few weeks, look awful. The iPods proved that even in a case, they still scratch. No thank you...

 

[GaryMumford]

That's almost a deal-breaker for me. Don't think I'll be able to ignore it when using the phone and it also sticks out like a sore thumb when the screen is off on the silver variant.

Assuming there IS going to be a silver variant!!!!

 

[Appleaker]

Multitasking on the iPhone? I think a lot of people will love that including me, I can see that only being for the 5.5" 7s and the iPhone 8 with 5.8" display. Also I wonder if this is related to Apple having patents recently and as far back as a yer or so for the Apple Pencil working with an iPhone? It would certainly be very interesting and possibly a Note killer.

The Pencil won't support the iPhone. It's bigger than the iPhone for crying out loud and nobody's going to carry that around or bother pairing it over and over again between their iPhone and iPad. It makes no sense.

As for multitasking, I think they are referring to multitasking in terms of the app switcher. The only form of multitasking I think thew iPhone should have is PiP. That would not be a compromised experience and would work great, not to mention it would be a unique feature like it is currently on macOS. And hopefully it would get other apps to implement it.

 

[TrueBlou]

This might sound pedantic but if Apple uses stainless steel edges then this won't be a buy for me. The old iPods and the recent Apple watches show that the scratches this material picks up is beyond ridiculous and after a few weeks, look awful. The iPods proved that even in a case, they still scratch. No thank you...

I don’t know, the bands on my iPhone 4, 4s held up really well and those were steel. Likewise the aluminium of my 5 and 5s didn’t fare too badly either.

 

[RogerWilco]

IMO the current gesture-activated controls that iOS pops up from the bottom of the screen are one of its worst features. Thank you Mr. Ive for annoying me numerous times each day when this stuff pops up inadvertently. Go ahead and add yet more hidden devices and controls so you can achieve that {Brit accent} placid look of smooth water... {/Brit accent}.

 

[GaryMumford]

What 'flick keyboard'?

flick down for numbers... it's awesome on the beta

 

[Appleaker]

The virtual home button on the Galaxy S8 I am testing out right now actually works really well. It rarely shows up but it always there, you just hard press it and it takes you home.

Well that's still clunkier than what there is currently (or what there was before) with a physical button. I find that home button fine but it isn't great.

 

[mrklaw]

flick down for numbers... it's awesome on the beta

its awesome for numbers (although on the ipad pro 10.5" I'd argue there is enough space for an actual row of numbers.)

But I don't like it for punctuation. They are completely differently laid out compared to a normal keyboard, or to the soft keyboard - you hit the symbols key and the symbols are in position A. You return to the normal keyboard and the symbols are scattered to the four winds.

Makes no sense

 

[jnice1121]

The only thing that I wonder about is siri. Very few people like using 'hey siri" as far as I can tell so I wonder how apple will allow us to active it without the home button.

Pressing the volume up and volume down at the same time doesn’t do anything...yet. That could be an easy solution.

 

[PlainviewX]

How were going to look navigating the iPhone 8.

 

[Appleaker]

As far as the “notch” is concerned, I don’t really mind if it’s blended in or not. It’s still a massive improvement over the huge chunk of black atop my iPhone 7+ screen. Naturally I’d prefer it blended in, but if it’s not, no biggie.

I’m definitely all in favour of gestures instead of a virtual home button (or perhaps as well as, who knows.) But over the years with iPhone and iPad I’ve always found myself using gestures wherever they’re available to me. It just feels right on a touch based interface. But that’s just my preference.

I’m really looking forward to the official reveal, to see what we do actually end up with. Whatever it is, I don’t imagine myself complaining too much.

We whinge and moan on a semi-regular basis that Apple doesn’t do enough to push iPhone forward. Then we whinge and moan when they change too much. To hell with it, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs and all that. I think we’re long overdue a major redesign to completely modernise iPhone and iOS and I’ve got reasonable confidence that Apple know what they’re doing with interfaces.

Personally I would prefer a consistent bezel, like on the S8 or Note 8. And for there to be one on both sides. That way the bottom bezel could act s the home button, perhaps it could be part of the screen but always off, so it could take advantage of 3D Touch rather than another component.

But as long as they use the space for the status bar, it's fine and makes sense. They are moving forward in the right way but it feels like they aren't ready and the implementation, while better how other companies would have done it, won't be perfect.

 

[AlliFlowers]

One of the things I dislike most about Android is the lack of a physical home button. In trying to activate any of the virtual keys I usually hit something I didn't intend to hit. If Apple goes this route, I may as well switch to Android.

 

[Appleaker]

Makes sense. The dock feature from the iPad should go to the iPhone 8. More importantly I want the flick keyboard from the iPad.

flick down for numbers... it's awesome on the beta

It's actually existed for over a year in. the Swift Playgrounds app, that version of the keyboard is still more. advanced in gestures. I think it will remain iPad only due to space constraints but it would be cool to see it come to iPhone.