Why do you need bezels on a phone or hardware buttons? It’s not like every other manufacturer is doing the same thing.
Ah yes, I keep forgetting how Apple is now a follower of the competition's designs instead of their former role as all-around leader in innovative, thoughtful, unique, and useful great design...
Rather than say "If Samsung jumped off a bridge," the following thoughts come to mind.
I prefer at least some bezel for several reasons. I'm one of the oddballs who uses a case to fix a key design deficiency in my $500+ purchase (durability); I don't consider my phone to be jewelry or a status symbol. With each iPhone purchase (on my 3rd now), I'm finding it to be increasingly difficult to enable certain features via swiping from off-screen with so little bezel for the case to fit around and provide some protection. It's bad enough now with my ancient 5s, I can only imagine things as bezels decease, including the heft a case will add (and essentially re-bezelling the phone....SMH). I'm an engineer and also find myself thinking that as bezels decrease, the ability of the phone to have built-in cushioning for energy absorption around its perimeter can only decrease... For the times I go w/o a case, I prefer being able to firmly grip my slippery iphone w/o covering the screen with fingertips. I also question the potential for accidental screen-presses with a no-bezel design, but I'd have to try it first to see if that can be engineered out.
Buttons - I'm one of those oddballs that must have a round volume knob in my car, so with my phone I dread the day Jony finds a way to also remove the side volume buttons and upper on/off button (we know that's coming...). As I've not yet lived with a buttonless-front iPhone, I think I'd still prefer a mechanical home button because it lets me unlock the phone (using touch ID) without having to look at the phone. This is especially helpful when it's my pants or coat pocket or when it's on the car seat next to me while driving and want to ready it for use by unlocking but without having to look at the phone or pick it up, etc. I also often work outside in harsh, cold conditions wearing gloves & head/face protection, so I think I would still prefer a physical button for unlock. Like I said, I have yet to interact with an Iphone not having a physical unlock button but again the engineer in me seeking robust designs would prefer a physical button for those times the phone dies or is stalled; I'd trust a physical button(s) for restart much more than a touch button. Similar thought regarding physical buttons for volume controls; there are too many times those are needed and shouldn't require multiple steps like looking at the phone, swiping up, touching/sliding volume controls on the screen, etc.
The trouble is that the above are all "real customer" scenarios that seem to be considered & prioritized less and less by today's Apple in favor of laboratory/showroom/marketing studio perfect-conditions.
These are just immediate thoughts off the top of my head regarding your question.
But going back to my post that you responded to -- it's just really been bugging me the past few years (since iOS7, really) to see the extents to which Apple is gradually chipping away the user interface in both software & hardware to where it's starting to feel like the frog in the pan of water, where the water is the equivalent of some one-upsmanship annual minimalism design contest deep in Apple's labs that some customers don't care to participate in. I quickly saw the light with phones w/o a physical keypad, MacBooks without disk-drives or spinning HD's, a TV remote with only 3 or 4 buttons...but I'm personally not feeling joy over the growing disappearance of things like Magsafe, headphone jacks, home buttons, touch ID, mechanical-clicking trackpads.
If Jony really was a good designer, Apple would offer options to users less interested in no-bezel and its related tradeoffs...a "Dura-iPhone" with better protection and more ports for improved professional use in the field...a "flip-iPhone" or blackberry-esque iPhone with keypad and smaller screen for those wanting more function than an Apple Watch but not needing all that a larger-screen jewelry-like iPhone offers.... Radical user-friendly and market-broadening ideas that Jony would never consider...better to offer nearly-identical 7, 8, X, etc.
If focusing on removing things is how Apple keeps growing and innovating while at the same time making Iphones increasingly complex and capable of more and more functions, then where will that leave them in 4-5 years...what interface elements will be left to remove & simplify. One does wonder. More should wonder, IMHO.
