USA TODAY International Edition
IPHONE 8: HOW REMOVING THE HOME BUTTON AFFECTS YOU
One benefit is more screen space, but no matter the design changes, not everyone is going to be happy
Try this modest exercise: Without looking at the screen, pick up your iPhone and watch how fast your finger lands on the home button. Pretty darn quick, I’d imagine.
Now consider what might happen if that physical home button — and by extension the Touch ID fingerprint sensor on it — were to disappear. What would be the consequence?
We must wait until Apple’s press gathering Tuesday to learn the fate of the home button, Touch ID and other features on the new iPhone 8, or whatever Apple ends up calling its latest flagship handset.
But there’s speculation this 10th anniversary iPhone will undergo the most radical design makeover in several years.
“It represents an important milestone that will bring us into the next 10 years of iPhone design,” tech analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies says. “I would expect Apple to do things that I believe are unique and do push technology boundaries.”
One possible outcome is the removal of the physical home button, to be replaced by a virtual button embedded beneath an edge-to-edge OLED display. The fingerprint sensor then could move to the back of the phone or be eliminated.
Touch ID, used not only to unlock the screen but to authenticate purchases made through Apple Pay, would have to be replaced (or complemented) by something else — perhaps some form of iris or facial recognition, similar to what Samsung offers on certain premium Galaxy S and Note devices. The latest Galaxy S8, like some other Android phones, also does not have a physical home button.
The home button itself is “one of those bedrock interface elements,” says Avi Greengart, research director for consumer platforms and devices at Global Data. “Users never feel lost because no matter what happens, the home button acts as a ‘getout-of confusion-free’ card.”
Greengart gives Apple leeway
“Users never feel lost because no matter what happens, the home button acts as a ‘get-out-of confusion-free’ card.” Avi Greengart, research director for consumer platforms and devices at GlobalData
to make changes, because he believes Apple nailed the user interface right from the start and iOS interaction principles are so well ingrained.
“As long as there’s a home button in some form, I don’t think it matters that much if that button is physical,” virtual or haptic —
meaning the device gives physical feedback, like a vibration.
Here, Apple faces the usual risk-reward conundrum. Even positive design changes almost always make somebody mad. And as the well-worn saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
At the same time, tech companies are wired to avoid stagnation, and in an ideal world, inventive design would deliver on multiple fronts. That means making a device more attractive to look at and adding or bolstering features to make it more useful.
It’s all easier said than done, and sometimes the introduction of new features means axing others. Even if the decision proves correct over time, it can lead to short-term inconveniences — say, grumblings and confusion over Apple’s past decisions to drop drives, ports and jacks when it updated devices.
Similarly, consumers may initially gripe about giving up the home button.
“It can seem hard to believe, but the permanent presence of a home button can actually serve as a reminder to use it,” says Raluca Budiu, director of research at Nielsen Norman Group, leaders in the user experience field.
Replacing the physical home button with a “soft” version or gesture may require extra effort by the consumer, especially absent any haptic cues. “It’s harder to precisely touch a soft target than a physical one,” she says.
On the other hand, eliminating the physical button brings a big benefit: more screen space. “That extra space might mean less scrolling and higher chances of actually seeing content that is relevant to us.”
Tech pundits, myself included, have lamented a lack of recent innovation in the smartphone space. At the same time, we sometimes hammer products for having too many confusing or overlapping features or for features that may seem cool or make for interesting demos but turn out to be rarely, if ever, employed.
To some degree, Apple can make hardware decisions and get away with it.
“The Apple brand is so strong that people will put up with the hurdles of actually learning a new system for the sake of using Apple products,” Budiu says.