“It looks like an iconic feature that has been a hallmark of the iPhone and the iPad for over 10 years is going the way of the headphone jack,” Mark Spoonauer writes for Tom’s Guide.
“Apple will release three new iPhones soon. You can expect a 5.8-inch iPhone X sequel and a 6.5-inch iPhone X Plus, each with an OLED display, as well as a cheaper, 6.1-inch LCD model that might be called the iPhone 9. And all of them are said to sport edge-to-edge screens — and a notch — like last year’s iPhone X. And you know what that means,” Spoonauer writes. “That’s right: The home button is about to die. ”
“The iPhone X’s gesture-based interface caused serious confusion when Apple’s flagship reached consumers’ hands,” Spoonauer writes. “Still, millions and millions of iPhone users will have to get acclimated to a new way of navigating their phone. Swiping up to go home, for example, only becomes second nature after you’ve started using the new system.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: The learning curve is so slight as to be nonexistent. The retraining is measured in hours, or no more than a couple of days for even the slowest of learners.
Losing the Home button was excellent in all respects, except it’s made us hate our iPads over the past year (soon to kill off the Home button, too)!
As iPhone X users already know, the Home button is the bane of smooth iOS use. The Home button is a staccato inducer; an iOS-interruptor that needs to disappear. Every time we pick up a non-iPhone X iOS device, we cannot believe the rudimentariness of the Home button-based UI. Over the past year, we’ve come to hate the Home button anachronism. Die, Home button, die!
At each step along the way, people get upset at the evolution of a user interface. I remember when power users derided the mouse. I remember when people hated the switch from a physical to a virtual keyboard on mobile devices (but, oh, how they loved the increase in display real estate!). I remember people disparaging Apple’s iPhone design with a single home button as “oversimplification.” Now, those same people are likely defending the home button against Apple’s effort to eliminate it. Truly humorous…
“The iPhone X’s gesture-based interface caused serious confusion when Apple’s flagship reached consumers’ hands,”
Utter horse manure. The new UI was extremely well received and Apple users love it.
It is SO frustrating that Apple is ignoring the 4″ size. I, along with many of my friends, like the smaller size phones. They fit better in your pocket. They are easier to navigate with one hand and they are simple. I think samsung fooled Apple to think everyone only wants a larger phone.
I really miss my home button on my iPhoneX.