This is why the home button has a square on it

[musika]

Just occurred to me --- I feel incredibly slow ---

The square on the home button symbolizes an app icon.

The curves are the same. And when iPhone first came around, it was known as "the revolutionary new phone with a bunch of candy-coloured little rounded squares you can tap on". It's so simple.

Brilliant little Apple Detail.

Sorry if this was obvious to people!

 

[Harvey Specter]

Actually hadn't really thought about it. Makes sense

 

[Spectrum Abuser]

Just occurred to me --- I feel incredibly slow ---

The square on the home button symbolizes an app icon.

Brilliant little Apple Detail.

Sorry if this was obvious to people!

Or it could just legitimately be a design to fill in the home button.

 

[musika]

Or it could just legitimately be a design to fill in the home button.

That's what I had always thought, but its the same dimensions, and it makes sense. If you wanna get back to your page with icons, click the button with the icon outline on it!

 

[Ayman250]

Hahaha incredible never really thought about it but makes a lot of sense.

 

[cshearer]

Wicked sick!

But in all seriousness, I now wonder why I've never thought about this. Good find.

 

[kdarling]

Good eyes!

I had just mentioned this again in a post about a month ago:

"Sidenote to those who don't know: the rounded box on the iPhone Home button is a blank app icon. It's supposed to indicate that the Home button will take us back to a page full of apps."

 

[Zepaw]

Yep, I had just mentioned this again in a post about a month ago:

Pshaw, that's so 30 days ago. I can't count how many years that is in MR time.

I never even considered as something with meaning, just seemed like a design choice. It does make sense.

 

[musika]

Good eyes!

I had just mentioned this again in a post about a month ago:

Ah, good find, as well. I had missed that!

 

[batting1000]

It's way smaller than an app icon.

 

[Agent-P]

I've never thought about it, but I guess you're right. Huh, I guess you learn something new everyday.

 

[msb3079]

Good post. I had never thought about that either. But looking at it, it is the same shape as the app icons. Pretty cool.

 

[newyorksole]

that's a sick find. talk about paying attention to detail. sheesh.

 

[musika]

It's way smaller than an app icon.

Sorry, you're right. I meant in the curves. Same curves

 

[Invincibilizer]

Nice thinking, haven't really given much thought till now.

Apple should stay with the circular home button, synonymous with clickwheel, it should not be changed.

 

[S7A2G6]

It's way smaller than an app icon.

Made me chuckle.

It may be a home symbol, much like Droid, but to lower the cost of the phone, they left the roof off.

Yeah. That's it.

 

[musika]

Made me chuckle.

It may be a home symbol, much like Droid, but to lower the cost of the phone, they left the roof off.

Yeah. That's it.

In the back of my head, I always wondered why it was never a home symbol.

 

[F123D]

Wow, soo simple yet I was clueless this whole time.

Now if apple can make that square on the home button glow during phone calls/messages/notications I will be blown away.

 

[S7A2G6]

Wow, soo simple yet I was clueless this whole time.

Now if apple can make that square on the home button glow during phone calls/messages/notications I will be blown away.

It glows while you are on a call, and not i speaker mode. You have to be quick to catch it. It glows blue.

 

[lukefinch]

You all seriously never noticed that before? I thought it was common sense that if you press the home button, with the app icon on it, it would take you back to all of the app icons on your iPhone.

 

[TM WAZZA]

I've never looked at it the same way.

What I see now cannot be unseen, thanks

 

[Skika]

Home button changed, forever.

Thanks OP

 

[Cod3rror]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148a Safari/6533.18.5)

Brilliant!

 

[kdarling]

You all seriously never noticed that before? I thought it was common sense that if you press the home button, with the app icon on it, it would take you back to all of the app icons on your iPhone

No facepalm is called for. Out of millions of users, I'd bet that almost nobody noticed.

Perhaps it would've been more obvious if it had been a tiny grid of colored icons, similar to the way that homescreen folders look. And not use a round button, which doesn't look like a homescreen background.

However, using a single app icon shape is nicely minimalistic.

I'm also pretty sure that I've seen a tiny grid used for that purpose on a handheld before.

Finally, a tiny grid would've locked them into the grid paradigm, which they might not have wanted to do at first.

 

[204353]

It's also square so that it looks exactly the same no matter which orientation you're holding your device in. That goes especially for the iPad, which can work upside-down as well.