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iPhone Rumor

M

MKT7@mac.com

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 11, 2007
6
0
I've heard from a few people that the 'home' button is going to be done away with and completely scrapped. In its place the bottom half of the iPhone will be clickable and serve as the home button. Apparently it will work similarily to the Macbooks new buttonless trackpad.

Not sure if it's true, but this is what I've heard, and I think it's a wonderful idea.

Thoughts?
 
I severely doubt any change to the home button is coming.

jmann said:
I was thinking a capacitive sensor home button, but that would be too easy to "press" during normal use.
Click to expand...

Not gonna happen. You need the 2 physical buttons to hard reboot the iPhone. If one of these buttons isn't an actual physical button then this becomes a bit of an issue. There have been 1 or 2 times when the touchscreen on my iPhone becomes completely unresponsive, so a capacitive touch home button would most likely become unusable as well, making a hard reset of the iPhone next to impossible to perform.
 
PoitNarf said:
Not gonna happen. You need the 2 physical buttons to hard reboot the iPhone. If one of these buttons isn't an actual physical button then this becomes a bit of an issue. There have been 1 or 2 times when the touchscreen on my iPhone becomes completely unresponsive, so a capacitive touch home button would most likely become unusable as well.
Click to expand...

That's completely true. I never thought of that. I guess they could always use a volume button as a secondary physical button for a hard reboot, but that is VERY unlikely.
 
jmann said:
That's completely true. I never thought of that. I guess they could always use a volume button as a secondary physical button for a hard reboot, but that is VERY unlikely.
Click to expand...

Unless we get some sort of reset hole or something but that's very non-Apple like.
 
I'm just really hoping for gestures and a dedicated gesture area like the Pre.

Oh yea, and unobtrusive notifications, but that isn't going to happen...
 
What I would like to see is to have this black part of the screen (where the home button and speaker is) touch sensitive. This would help with keeping hands off the screen while scrolling...
 
MKT7@mac.com said:
I've heard from a few people that the 'home' button is going to be done away with and completely scrapped. In its place the bottom half of the iPhone will be clickable and serve as the home button. Apparently it will work similarily to the Macbooks new buttonless trackpad.

Not sure if it's true, but this is what I've heard, and I think it's a wonderful idea.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

The shape of the leaked iPhone bezel seems like it might possibly support this configuration. Hopefully it's not too distracting in real-world use.
 
gloss said:
The shape of the leaked iPhone bezel seems like it might possibly support this configuration. Hopefully it's not too distracting in real-world use.
Click to expand...

I think you are right. If so, the whole screen will be shifted about 1 cm upwards. But, would that still allow any room at the bottom for gestures? Or, the screen will become bigger and there will be no dedicated "gesture" area.
 
kas23 said:
I think you are right. If so, the whole screen will be shifted about 1 cm upwards. But, would that still allow any room at the bottom for gestures? Or, the screen will become bigger and there will be no dedicated "gesture" area.
Click to expand...

Hate to ask when the whole screen is set up for gestures what is the point in having a second gesture area that doesn't utilise screen space????
 
kisbys said:
Hate to ask when the whole screen is set up for gestures what is the point in having a second gesture area that doesn't utilise screen space????
Click to expand...

For times when you'd like to, say, scroll the screen without your finger covering what you're trying to read.

It could be useful.

Tallest Skil said:
Dirt would get between it and the bezel and make it unusable after a few months.

Think Mighty Mouse tracksphere.
Click to expand...

How is it functionally much different from the current home button, besides naturally sporting a much larger border?

I have plenty of devices with such buttons that have set to cease functioning. My Macbook Pro trackpad, for one.
 
kisbys said:
Hate to ask when the whole screen is set up for gestures what is the point in having a second gesture area that doesn't utilise screen space????
Click to expand...

Good point. So either new bezel is completely wrong or larger screen is coming.
 
gloss said:
For times when you'd like to, say, scroll the screen without your finger covering what you're trying to read.
Click to expand...

I agree it could be useful but technicaly speaking seems to me for a very small amount of times that you would use it it would add way too much bulk, use up too much space and frankly if they put a bigger screen in it would be be less complicated for the engeniers probably cheaper in the end and you could give users the option.

Plus the main arguement against it is that it would be a major step back. the whole point of the iphone is its screen and what multitouch brought compared to touch screens of old... to put this in would be like apple saying multitouch was a mistake...
 
PoitNarf said:
I severely doubt any change to the home button is coming.



Not gonna happen. You need the 2 physical buttons to hard reboot the iPhone. If one of these buttons isn't an actual physical button then this becomes a bit of an issue. There have been 1 or 2 times when the touchscreen on my iPhone becomes completely unresponsive, so a capacitive touch home button would most likely become unusable as well, making a hard reset of the iPhone next to impossible to perform.
Click to expand...

not true the old ipod mkIII had totally capacitive buttons and you could use them to reset the device...
 
PoitNarf said:
I severely doubt any change to the home button is coming.



Not gonna happen. You need the 2 physical buttons to hard reboot the iPhone. If one of these buttons isn't an actual physical button then this becomes a bit of an issue. There have been 1 or 2 times when the touchscreen on my iPhone becomes completely unresponsive, so a capacitive touch home button would most likely become unusable as well, making a hard reset of the iPhone next to impossible to perform.
Click to expand...

unless.....

apple think the new iPhone will be soooooo great it never needs to be hard reset.
Highly unlikely
 
Warbrain said:
You find me a computer that never needs a hard reset.
Click to expand...

How could you say that my vista pc is so wonderfully reliable it never needs restarting!!!! having said that since the windows 7 RC came allong had a few services getting stuck and needing 100% processing power other than that haven't had a single problem quite impressed especially for a RC
 
kisbys said:
How could you say that my vista pc is so wonderfully reliable it never needs restarting!!!! having said that since the windows 7 RC came allong had a few services getting stuck and needing 100% processing power other than that haven't had a single problem quite impressed especially for a RC
Click to expand...

I liked 7 a lot until the RC caused my Macbook Pro to randomly lock up. Must be the Boot Camp drivers.

I might build a PC later this year running 7, though. That's how highly I think of it.
 
gloss said:
I liked 7 a lot until the RC caused my Macbook Pro to randomly lock up. Must be the Boot Camp drivers.

I might build a PC later this year running 7, though. That's how highly I think of it.
Click to expand...

quite like it apart from the the occasional service getting locked into a feed back loop and taking up 100% of processor power... quite easy to solve though (after the first time it happened when I didn't know what was wrong and almost threw the pc out the window in frustration!!!!!)
 
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