Last Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump offered feedback for Apple CEO Tim Cook regarding the company’s iPhone, especially its Home button or lack thereof. In a tweet, the leader of the world’s largest economy called out the Apple CEO and lamented the loss of the Home button on the company’s smartphones.
To Tim: The Button on the IPhone was FAR better than the Swipe!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 25, 2019
A former Apple user interface prototyping team member responded.
As an iPhone UI designer, you need to have a thick skin. First, you have to defend your idea internally at Apple. Then members of the public endlessly critique your work upon its release. The one thing you probably don’t expect, though? For the president of the United States to slam your painstaking creation.
That’s exactly what happened to former Apple user interface prototyping team member Linda Dong. In a Sunday tweet, she commented on President Donald Trump’s recent declaration about the iPhone X interface.
☑️ Do the dishes
☑️ Go for a walk
☑️ Have the President of the United States tweet he does’t like the UX your team worked on
☑️ Water the plants pic.twitter.com/mZSqVt0eqk— Linda Dong 🥽 🌸 (@lindadong) October 27, 2019
Dong left in April 2015, years before the iPhone X shipped in 2017, but it appears that the swipe-based interface was designed during this time.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, the Home button is an anachronism. The Home button is awful. Any user who gives the swipe-based UI five minutes will get used to the new, better way of doing things – it’s much more fluid and faster without the constant staccato interruption of clicking that damn antiquated Home button. Whenever we run into an old iPhone or iPad with a home button, we curse it.
Most of us accomplished our five-minute conversion back in 2017 with iPhone X, but government moves at a glacial pace at best, so it’s actually surprising that a Home button-free, gesture-based iPhone made it to the president this soon!
Personally, I hate not having touch id anymore. face id might make unlocking your phone more convienient but it ruins apple pay and the app store.
I now have to click the right button twice and use face id to make any purchases where as before, i would just put my tumb on the button and that was it. def a step back fpr some things/
You use your iPhone for Apple Pay? LOL. Use your Apple Watch, it’s the best way to Apple Pay by far. Dead simple.
And if you don’t have a Watch? Don’t bother I think I know the answer.
If you want to buy me an Apple Watch for the couple hours a day I can wear one, feel free. Some of us who work for a living are in places that don’t allow ‘net connected devices, so it’s not worth spending the money on.
Agree. Face ID was implemented because there was no satisfactory way to continue Touch ID without a Home button. And the Swipe Up way is fine; I can use that gesture on my iPad OR press its Home button. I’ve tried using only Swipe Up (for more than “five minutes”), and I still go back to pressing Home button. If the new way is SO much better, I’d ignore Home button (except when I need Touch ID).
Conclusion… If there’s a choice, Home button is more convenient and intuitive. Pressing down is easier than swiping up. These’s a tactile sensation. Apple knows this is important, because they went through the trouble of adding haptics to trackpads and some device screens, to add sensation of pressing down on a button.
trump is right in this regard. The home button is a better interface and the reason why I have yet to upgrade to a newer phone.
You’ve never really used the tech keeping you from upgrading? Hmmm.
“This thing that I don’t have and therefore do not understand is not something I want.” – Chris and every Luddite before him
Knowing what you want, or wanting the option, is not being a Luddite. Being a Luddite is accepting what your served.
Yes! This! I am furious Apple doesn’t provide an option for a floppy drive in my iPhone!
No skin off your nose now is there? I might want to print a Nobel Laureate’s past Ph.D. thesis….
Did your parents not read “Green Eggs and Ham” by Dr. Seuss to you when you were growing up, or did the moral of that story just elude you?
Maybe they read the alternate ending?
Ok Boomer
I personally love FaceID. It is extremely convenient. As far as Apple Pay is concerned, by far, the Apple Watch is the simplest to use.
Dong’s text is hilarious.
Can we just move the power button back to the top so it’s not accidentally clicked every time you want to take landscape photos? 😉
Or, to increase chance of prompting Siri, Apple Pay, turning the phone on, turning the phone off taking a screen shot (with press of left buttons) and increasing frustration because Apple chose money over good design ergonomics with the move of the button from top to right side.
In practice I find there are many situations in which Face ID simply will not work. Like when I’m outside wearing sunglasses. Or sometimes when I’m wearing headphones. Or if the phone of iPad is flat on a surface with the camera not pointed at my face. So then I get the six-digit input. And invariably the input does not keep up with me or I slightly miss one of the numbers and have to start from scratch in frustration. So yes, there are plenty of situations in which the elegance of a one finger touch is missed.
Another situation: when I’m in bed on my side with a CPAP mask in the way.
All you people who complain just don’t know the facts. iPhones let you register TWO faces. So do one of your normal face. Then do one outside with sunglasses on. Problem solved.
Same with cpap machine. Do a Face ID with a normal face and then one with your c-crap machine on. See if it works!
Hate but have to agree with DT. NEVER had to use my passcode with TouchID (aside from restarts, etc.). DAILY have to re-jigger, face the phone, and/or use the passcode with FaceID. Especially problematic when driving and the vehicle CarPlay system requires the phone to be unlocked to operate. What was an easy blind find of the Home button wherever the phone lay is now a tedious, annoying, distracting, life-threatening (I hyperbolize slightly) ordeal.
Rescan your face!
Sounds like you monkey around too much with your phone. I never have to do any of that. I do love to tweet a lot though and dogs are great, except when terrorists die like dogs.
“…to slam your painstaking creation.”
How is 90% ‘swipe to open’ and 10% from a different direction a “painstaking creation”. Someone needs to get over themselves.
“The Home button is an anachronism.”
How do you dial an iPhone?
By voice.
The button was a moving part that could jam or break, and makes it harder to waterproof the product.
My 2012 MacBook Pro has seven holes in the case for SD cards, Thunderbolt, USB, HDMI, and the miniature version of a 1930s phone jack for a headset. In the last seven years, I have only used three of them. I’m looking forward to my next MacBook Pro, which only has USB-C connectors, which do not require holes in the case. That protects the integrity of the computer while allowing me to buy only the adapters I need.
“The button” ceased to be a physical moving button a few generations ago, in favour of haptic feedback.
Apple is going to do whatever Apple wants to do. It repeatedly removes things that work in order to push whatever it thinks will be more profitable or will differentiate itself. Butterfly keyboards were also described by Shiller as better in every way, and they were clearly not in any way. Likewise for many people, FaceID is less convenient than TouchID. Too bad Apple doesn’t like to offer choices.
Speaking of buttons….
“The resolution put forward by Speaker Pelosi confirms that House Democrats’ impeachment has been an illegitimate sham from the start as it lacked any proper authorization by a House vote,” White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said. (weak attempt at deflection!)
Following committee investigations in keeping with House rules, the House responded:
232 yea to 196 nay
The buttons have been pressed. Con Don might want to focus his attention on things that matter, even it if interferes with his TV and Tweet time.
Now, now. Don’t tax trumps mental capacity by asking him to focus.
Didn’t Obama had a Blackberry when Blackberry was no longer market relevant? Lack of focus goes to both sides.
The potus is issued secured phones by the federal IT guys. When Obama was president, Blackberry was the best choice. Today the iPhone is an option.
They had to pry Donald’s Samsung S3 out of his hands. He used it for months after being counseled how insecure it was.
https://www.wired.com/2017/01/trump-android-phone-security-threat/
But you knew all that, didn’t you?
Yep.
Yep. I know everything. I am Citizen X, meeter of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, manager of a store, tuber on a YouTube video, raiser of children and know-it-aller of MDN. I am the greatest – greater than Ali. Grabbier than Trump (although I grab praise, not puusiiez or penizez), and I am just an all around nice guy that people love, especially here at MDN, my third home.
Xanax is the proper spelling idiot.
So riddle me this batman?
Should i be ashamed of helping usher in the use of computers? Do you have a purpose in life other than being a spiteful little worm?
You are a horrible person X.
You are also too dumb to notice that the Z in Zanax is a play on the Z in Citizen, but because you met Steve Jobs, you were supposed to know that. But you didn’t, because reasons, obvs. Oh well, suX to be Citizen X
Actually you are too stupid to spell it right.
LOL… so you equate the SS giving a President a secure phone to the shitshow that is the trump (mal)administration.
Got it.
LOL… so you equate having met Steve Jobs with any of the rest of us giving a shyt. Got it.
You obviously do.
MDN: “The Home button is awful.”
MDN, I can easily assume then that you were complaining about the home button for the first seven or more years you had an iPhone. If not, then it clearly was never and stil is not “awful”.
As others have stated, there are clear cases where the home buttom still makes more sense than the interface on the last couple years of iPhones.
For me it’s the loss of convenience. During the work day I typically have my iPhone off to the side in a cradle.With a home button when a message or email came in I could just place my finger or thumb on the home button and the full message would be accessible. I very rarely had to remove the phone from the cradle. It was fast and efficitient.
FaceID does not recognize me in profile. Now I have to pick up the phone and go through gestures (after it recognizes me by my staring directly at it) to get to those messages or emails. It’s a many time a day occurence..
(No, people I communicate with do NOT converse in three word phrases and emoji. We use full sentences and almost always multiple sentences for each communication. Thus those snippets of a message or email on the home screen do absolutely nothing for me.)
The bottom line really is, “Will more people love the new interface or lament the old one?” My guess is that more like the new interface.
President. Trump. Two words no patriot should ever use in the same sentence. Truly disturbing and offensive. Not politics. Morality. He dishonors the office- which I respect. But not with him in that position. Plus, he’s a f***ing moron. I can barely listen to his voice or read his name.
Wow, people here are such assholes. Can you imagine if everyone was the same and there were no choices… I’ve had the 11 pro for about a month now, and even though Face ID is cool and convenient at times, I liked the home button better.
I liked the home button better also. I have 10 fingers with 10 spots on each finger (at least) to train the phone.
On my iPhone 7 it was the left side of my right thumb
Business Insider had an article on:
How to get a virtual home button on your iPhone screen with AssistiveTouch, if your iPhone doesn’t have a physical one
You may want to get a virtual home button on-screen on your iPhone, as recent models have done away with the physical button. You can get a home button on-screen on your iPhone if you’re not happy that Apple has phased out the home button on recent iPhone models. To add the home button function on-screen, turn on AssistiveTouch in the Accessibility section of Settings. To use the home button, tap the AssistiveTouch button and then tap the home button when it appears in the pop-out menu. Visit
Read in Business Insider: https://apple.news/Aq67YTJ65QsWOfXOQSmoYGg