New iPhone leaks show tap to wake, attention detection, and virtual home button
theverge.com
theverge.com
But I didn't like the design of the iPhone 6 compared to the 4 and 5. It's good to see it change finally. The 4 and 5 looked like a piece of futuristic technology, like the Samsung Edge designs nowadays. From what I've seen the iPhone 8 will outdo Samsung for the first time in years in that department.
Facial recognition usually falls down in low-light situations as well, such as while laying in bed, or on a red-eye flight.
You could always use the old-school keycode unlock.
I know a novice user who sticks with iDevices (as opposed to Android) precisely because they have a physical home button. As they describe it, "it's a magic button that's always there and always gets you back out of whatever you're in". By contrast, they dislike Android devices because of the virtual buttons that are sometimes removed in favor of more content.
Usability is very much about consistency with whatever a user is used to, and I'd be surprised if there aren't quite a few more users with similar sensibilities who find the physical button simpler to deal with.
I do not think it is just novice users that like the home button.
I just got a $130 Moto E4, and its fingerprint scanner can actually be set to mimic the back/home/recents on-screen softkeys, if you swipe left/tap/swipe right. A long press (until you feel a vibration) switches the phone on and off, and a double-long press (two vibrations) launches Google Assistant.
It works well and is very intuitive, allowing me to remove the traditional Android softkeys, making the 5" Moto E screen seem closer to a 5.5". I assume Moto's more expensive models also do this, and possibly other phones as well.
It made me wonder how I lived for so long with the old setup, so I'd be surprised if Apple goes the other way.
All this means is that they can use the screen real estate for something other than a button in some cases. If you're watching a video, I wouldn't be surprised if the home button still worked, it would just be hidden. (But it wouldn't be a huge loss if it didn't work, either, in my opinion.)
That's exactly what I was describing as a bug, rather than a feature, in this case. A physical button is always there, always works, doesn't make the UI contextual, and gives a novice user confidence that they can always "escape".
I personally do prefer to have as much screen real-estate as possible, at the expense of a physical button next to the screen; however, that's not a universal preference, and I would not be at all surprised if more Apple users are particularly fond of that button.
Numerous Android devices (including, I believe, all the Samsung lines and certainly the flagship Sn and Galaxy Note lines) have physical home buttons. So its kind of odd that one would base a preference for iDevices over Android on a feature on which the two are not differentiated.
Honestly, I'd don't see much making Samsung's “vendor junk” any worse than Apple's, but, sure, if you prefer Apple's software to that provides by the major Android device makers, that's a legitimate reason to prefer iOS to Android. The patently false idea that Android devices, as a class, don't have a physical home key is not.
> The flagship devices don't have a physical home button.
Many Android flagship phones do. Google's Pixel line does not, but while Pixel might fairly be called an Android flagship phone (well, two, the base model and the XL) or Google's flagship phone(s), it's clearly not the whole of the space of Android flagships.
Edit: there was also tap-to-wake which is awesome feature as well. Happy to see it on iOS.
Though to address randerson's point, the accessories aftermarket would pick up Apple's shortcomings, as usual.
Having the extra screen space available for watching full screen videos and such is nice.
If you remove the home button then there is no up and down, since the virtual home button would always rotate to the bottom per gravity.
If they could use identical transducers that perform well as both speaker and mic, then I'm sure the remaining buttons could be made virtual as well (full touch-sensitive sidebars maybe?), although personally I like having certain buttons implemented as physical devices.
1. Double-tap on the screen. Lockscreen appears.
2. Check the clock.
3. Fumble annoyedly until finding the power button to turn the screen off.
I guess they're worried about false positives. But LG solved this by only allowing double tap to turn off from any of the default apps (home screen, notifications, settings, etc). You had to quit out of third party apps to turn it off that way.
That is how it has been implemented in the Android phones I've used so far.
The facial recognition stuff seems odd to me, in the sense that I can't really figure out what it would be used for (aside from a silly smile detector in the camera app), but hopefully it'll be locked behind permission prompts (or barely accessible at all) in third party apps.
I was skeptical, but I have a friend who has a similar thing running on his Windows box and it works surprisingly well.
Developers can then check what levels are fun to play, and what are a chore. That way they can optimize their future games, or even change the level architecture based on the emotional level of the player.
I think you can apply this strategy to ads too, to learn what kind of ad an user likes or dislikes, so they can target the ads a little bit better/easier.
Which is exactly why I will refuse to give any facial recognition data to third party apps.
1. People will give permission for it without realising their personal information, preferences and data will be collected, aggregated and used to build an overall profile of them as a person, to find the most effective way of convincing them to buy things. Much like the old flashlight apps that curiously required location permissions, it'll be permission creep all over again.
2. Facial gestures are involuntary. You don't explicitly give permission for the fact that X made you smile and Y made you frown because it'll happen before you're even consciously aware that you've done it.
Why do you think ad providers will optimise for things that make me happy? Why not optimise for things that make me worried, and more likely to purchase the answer whatever "problem" they are putting in front of me?
That is, maximized micro transactions and addictive potential.
I hope it works - I rather like TouchID and would be disappointed to have it replaced by something crappier.
my concern with any facial recognition replacing what is currently in use is that many times I unlock my phone without having to look at it and rely on that. The old slip it out of my pocket and quick glance to see if I need to address something now
That said, I don't think it'll ever happen - that placement of the sensor is so much of an Android-ism that I doubt Apple would ever allow themselves to adopt it.
That's not my experience. When I put the phone in my pocket I have to take care of positionning the back against my body otherwise my skin through the jeans trigger pocket calls.
With my old Moto X, I could just wave my hand over the phone while it was laying next to me and a minimal version of the lock screen with clock and notifications would show up.
On my current phone (Pixel) it does the same with a double tap: clock, notifications, nothing else. The phone doesn't unlock until I use the fingerprint reader or swipe my lock pattern.
Any type of "authentication" wouldn't make sense, that'd be as silly as a finger print scanner. Smile detector might be fun but certainly not worth the privacy trade off. There's only 1 useful feature I can think of and I've yet to see it done: when my head is sideways and the phone is sideways, I'm lying down, don't rotate the frickin' screen. Still not worth the privacy trade off, but people who don't care will be very happy.
They have many options, including making the "tap" a force touch. So requiring a certain amount of pressure before actually turning on. Or requiring a double tap. Or being more of a "tap to unlock" using raise to wake.
Like how they thought about how a user's hand could short the antenna circuit with the iPhone 4? Not to entirely discredit the effort their engineers put into these phones, but oversights happen and some aren't discovered until you get enough hands on the device.
Are iOS and Android continuing to converging on the same features? What new innovations can be found in the mature mobile market or should be look to other form factors?
That said, I find nothing wrong with Apple adding features from Android (and vice versa) where it fits the device. The only thing I miss about the HTC One M8 I had was that I could double tap the screen to wake it (that rounded back loved sliding in the car. Reminded me of the iPhone 3G/3GS. Kind of disliked the phone outside of the double tap to wake and the speakers)
AR/VR is where the new innovations are happening. ARKit, Tango, Oculus, Hololens, etc.
Even this point is highly contentious.
AR/VR is interesting but won't take off until the hardware lowers in price..significantly.
I worry that in a couple years we'll just have a shiny black lump in our pocket that we'll communicate with via intuition.
Nice! Just what advertisers need. Black Mirror here we come! /s