“Getting rid of the home button could be one of the greatest things Apple could do for the iPhone 8,” Buster Hein reports for Cult of Mac.
“Rumors have been swirling for months that Apple plans to embed Touch ID into the screen in order to ditch the home button,” Hein reports. “A fantastic new concept imagines how Apple could use that extra screen real estate to make navigating the iOS faster than ever.”
“Instead of making users tap around to unlock a menu of icons, the new concept from iDropNews acts kind of like a mini-Touch Bar from the new MacBook Pro,” Hein reports. “Icons would be displayed dynamically based on what app your in and functions you’re performing.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Check out iDropNews‘ full iPhone 8 Function Area image gallery here.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s iPhone 8 may spur the biggest refresh cycle in history – March 9, 2017
Apple’s next-gen iPhone to feature curved OLED display and USB-C connector – February 28, 2017
Ming-Chi Kuo: 5.8-inch iPhone 8 to offer 5.15-inch usable screen space with new ‘function area’ – February 16, 2017
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple’s next-gen 5.5-inch OLED ‘iPhone 8’ to be similar in physical size to 4.7-inch iPhone 7, with significant battery increase – February 13, 2017
Analyst foresees Apple’s 10th anniversary ‘iPhone X’ to feature 5.8-inch OLED ‘fixed flex’ wraparound display – January 18, 2017
Why so few ‘iPhone 8’ units will have OLED displays – December 22, 2016
Apple supplier Japan Display wins $640 million from government-backed fund to boost OLED tech as Apple eyes new iPhone display – December 21, 2016
Oh my. Ideas are like the hair on people, even bald beople; Everyone has so many but it takes Apple to find that one idea and introduce it to the world’s delight, well, most of the time. I still have confidence in Apple but am losing it, I have to admit, and its cash has absolutely nothing to do with it as I do not value Apple for its banking prowess at all.
And I hope that Apple can stop making its quarterly fiscal statements and its projections which divert its full attention from products and services, and instead talk about vision and produce stuff that delights and intrigues, to become a thought leader as Jobs was.
And I hope that Cook give less speeches to avoid overexposure and, when he does, to make them shorter with a zinger to rile up its enemies at least for the publicity and captivate and enchant its loyalists.
It’s kind of hard for the world’s largest publicly held company not to make quarterly fiscal statements. They are meaningful to many people, even if not to you.
Cook should refrain from appearing at Apple’s fiscal statements, especially from droning on, as it dilutes his presence.
Just because they may remove the home button on the next iPhone, they can’t remove the home button functionality. It’s one of the most core elements of iOS. The center of all of those function areas should include a home button picture
Good point. Maybe they’ll just make it like the notification pane but you drag up from the bottom to display it.
I’d probably get used to it, but the force-touch home button on the iPhone 7 doesn’t feel right. Removing it entirely would be strange. The few times I’ve handled home-button-less Androids I was underwhelmed. Removing all mechanical travel is shortsighted, we need tacticle feedback beyond a simulated click.
I’d bet on it. I’d also bet the next-gen iPad Pros from 2018 will have a Function Area too.
How cool a ‘Function Area’ would be? You have got to be kidding me. This isn’t cool. This is porn for techies, at best. Most people would be like, “what?” Where is the home button? How about this: Apple keeps the physical home button in place but surrounds it with usable display space for extra things that make sense depending on what you’re doing. Right now, that area is wasted real estate.
Rumors have been swirling for months that Apple plans to embed Touch ID into the screen in order to ditch the home button,” Hein reports.
The stale old rumor is at least two years old. Every time it’s dragged out again it gets more fantastical and acquires more bullet holes. Not Gonna Happen.
For me, this is just another demonstration of techno ignorance in the field we still attempt to describe as technology journalism.
Meanwhile, new GUI ideas are always fine. As per usual, I’m cheering for usable/useful 3-D GUI elements. Yeah, that concept is covered in cobwebs, but I’ll never understand why.
I did think that something like a touch bar might be useful for battery saving purposes since if it was big enough to show banner notifications it wouldn’t need to activate the main screen to display them or even obscure the main screen area. Then again it feels like it could just be another thing that ends up not being used.
Your idea sounds suspiciously like the reason for the Galaxy Edge series side displays.
I’m looking at my 6+ and I have an entire empty icon row above my dock, the home button area is even smaller than that row, I’ts not taking up space at all. What’s needed is a substantial update to iOS to allow for customization of Control Center, the lock screen and the home screen. I adjust the brightness so frequently, even a single gesture of swiping an area of the screen like you do to get to the camera would be welcome. As a mobile operating system iOS can’t be beat, but its clunkiness reminds me of why an iPad is nowhere near meeting my computing needs over Mac OS.
In short, the home button is not a problem, I hope they don’t get rid of it just for the sake of “progress” while leaving iOS largely the same. The last big iOS upgrade I remember was nearly 4 years ago, time for a refresh.