“Apple’s 2017 iPhone is shaping up to be an incredibly intriguing device,” Yoni Heisler writes for BGR. “Echoing previous speculation from the rumor mill, a new report from Bloomberg relays that the iPhone 8 (Apple may skip the iPhone 7s nomenclature) will not ship with a mechanical home button.”
“Previous sources have indicated that the home button on the iPhone 8 will be integrated into the display itself, will sit flush with the display, and will rest atop of a series of touch-sensitive sensors that will vibrate when pressed,” Heisler writes. “In turn, the vibration will give users the illusion and sensation that the button can be depressed when it is, in fact, completely stationary… (Apple has already implemented a similar scheme on the trackpads used on its line of MacBooks).”
“Apple of course isn’t getting rid of the iPhone’s tried and true home button for no good reason. Reports of an embedded home button dovetail nicely with previous claims that the iPhone 8 will feature an edge to edge display,” Heisler writes. “What’s more, there are also rumblings that Apple with the iPhone 8 will introduce a third iPhone model with a curved OLED display. At this point, though, it remains unclear if every iPhone 8 model will be graced with an edgeless display or if it will be a feature reserved solely for what will presumably be a Pro model.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The design goal at Apple has always been to shed as many mechanical buttons as possible and, for iPhone and iPad, to make the device all about the display. A thin, light, and very strong (ultimate tensile strength) device that’s “all display” with integrated Home/Touch ID button and FaceTime camera is the Holy Grail of iPhones.
