Ok, say the phone fudges a firmware update and is frozen solid. How do you design a system with no physical buttons to enable vital features such as DFU mode if the software driving the capacitive buttons is not working?
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Things about the iPhone 5 you found unacceptable
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Ok, say the phone fudges a firmware update and is frozen solid. How do you design a system with no physical buttons to enable vital features such as DFU mode if the software driving the capacitive buttons is not working?
We're talking about the front mounted home button only. There are still volume, camera, and power buttons, you know. For example, to reset my Lumia 920 I press the bottom volume rocker and the capacitive home button....does the same thing.
You know software drives physical buttons, too, right? You know capacitive buttons do the same things as physical buttons, right? Ever used a capacitive light switch? No software there, just physics.
But but...if I don't see it physically move and hear it click then how could anything happen when I press it...
Easy. Hold power and volume up buttons together for a few seconds. Next!
(By the way, how do you think Android phones have done it all these years?)
If it were apple that first did capacitive or software buttons you'd bet folks would be singing a different tune about physical buttons. They just might even say the same things we're saying, how it feels antiquated and old. 
Your own thread title implies that you must have found a better alternative, so what is it? iPhones consistently have among the best battery life of any smartphone, so if you're dinging the 5 on this metric, which device have you gone to that is noticeably better?
As for the Home button, I hope they keep it for quite some time. 10+ total iPhones in this family over the years and I've never had one go bad. Until there are virtual buttons that provide the kind of feedback that a real one does, I hope they stick with it.
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What are you talking about? My 4, and now 5 each go 4-8 hours of use and 2-5 days of standby all the time with Siri, BT, wifi, gps, basically everything turned on. Their devices have among the best battery life in the industry, year in and year out.
So you make a post like that, follow it up. Who is doing so much better that makes Apple look 'appalling'?
Your statement would be true about any two phones that have followed each other in recent years. We don't get revolutions every year.
Many people feel this way. I'd agree if it wasn't a touch screen phone.
But since the touch screen is widely preferred & doesn't give feedback, claiming a capacitive button is inferior to an old school mechanical, is just plain hypocritical.
Completely impervious to water, dust & debris, the digital button is far superior.
Good design shouldn't change every generation just for the sake of change. Radical shifts generation after generation usually indicates that neither form was really that great.
No doubt apple will one day get rid of the physical home button:
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patent...ce-virtual-keyboards-replace-home-button.html
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patent...ce-virtual-keyboards-replace-home-button.html
True, but what happens when the traditional home button becomes a capacitive button? As it is now, pressing it implies intent to perform a certain action, while a capacitive home button that is intended to serve the same function wouldn't necessarily discern between intentional presses and accidental ones.
And why aren't we talking about the volume, camera, and power buttons? For a touch screen phone, it seems like holding onto a volume button is a little too traditional as well. Why can't they all be capacitive? One day there might be a completely button-free phone, but I think physical buttons serve a purpose until the software that can discern between accidental and intentional presses is more advanced. Otherwise, the initial phones relying primarily on capacitive buttons will require the user to "press"the button for a longer period of time(granted it might not be that long in the scheme of things) but it will most likely be longer than if it were a traditional button.
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This is of course absolutely possible, but I think it 's interesting that the virtual button will be designed to mimic a physical and traditional home button.
You mean the lack of notifications and severe lack of functions, and 0 customizability in the Metro UI (Just swaths wasted space and square colors) is enough to make up for it?
" own thread title implies that you must have found a better alternative, so what is it? iPhones consistently have among the best battery life of any smartphone, so if you're dinging the 5 on this metric, which device have you gone to that is noticeably better?"
As I've already mentioned in this thread, the Nokia Lumia 920.
As I've already mentioned in this thread, the Nokia Lumia 920.
A much larger device with perhaps fractionally better battery in some situations. Hardly cut and dry.
The screen was too small for me. The lowest screen size I was willing to accept was 4.3' and the iPhone 5 couldn't even reach that.
On Android this is usually accomplished with a combination of volume and screen lock button.
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Sorry, but I 100% agree with this one and it makes a lot of sense.
If I am holding my phone in my hand with headphones in, having the cord come out the bottom keeps it out of the way.
I also tend to stick my phone top first into my pocket, with the screen facing in. I do this with one motion and without reorienting the phone. It's not as easy to do this if you stick the phone in bottom first because of the cable coming out the top.
My way means the jack is closest to the top of my pocket and I dont either:
1. have a tangle of cable in my pocket due to the jack being at the bottom of my pocket..
Or
2. No problem with the cable but need to reorient the phone to use once out of my pocket.
Remind me guys, what button do you push on your current phones to do things like getting back to your home screen or bringing up the multi-tasking window?
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I can do all of these these functions on my Nexus 4 without the presence of a physical home button. So explain again why it has to be a physical button?
Firstly... We aren't just talking about capacitive buttons, we are talking about on-screen buttons and they:
1. Don't break
2. Can reorient with the phone as it rotates
3. Can change based on context
No one is arguing that you should rely on software buttons for recovery. The iPhone has other physical buttons which could perform this task... just like most modern Androids. Just get rid of the home button.