iOS 11 Dock and Gesture Controls to Replace 'iPhone 8' Home Button Entirely | Hacker News Reader

iOS 11 Dock and Gesture Controls to Replace 'iPhone 8' Home Button Entirely

macrumors.com

30 pointsjanober62 comments

The thing is that the button always works reliably while all their interface swipes are laggy and become unusable under heavy load, in battery saving mode and as usual, in a few years after they stop optimizing for the old hardware.

But isn't that an implementation detail?

I would assume that if they want, they can assign a non-changeable interrupt to the swipe recommendation call.

The swipe needs to be recognized as such before the prioritization, while a separate home-buttom IRQ feels more immediate and hence "reliable" under most mental models.

One could argue that any tactile event would generate an IRQ so it shouldn't matter whether the interrupt handler is from the screen or home button, except that there intuitively seem to be many more branches and CPU cycles required to determine the actual priority/intent of a tactile interrupt versus a smaller set of branches required for the home button.

Are there comparative latency numbers between SW dock and HW button, as Apple reports for the Pencil?

That is still decided on a software level. The home button on my iPhone has become unresponsive before, even being a physical button. As long as the swipe gesture and "open homescreen" actions are given higher priority I don't think that should be an issue.

I'm more worried about swipe recognition. It regularly happens to me that I want to swipe up the control centre and accidentally press a button in the app instead. Esp if screen or my finger are a bit wet. The home button always works.

I have an iPhone 4(not as my main device) and the home button is not very responsive on the newest OS. Your point is valid but in my experience the device is laggy when you update even when it has a home button.

A bezel-less and home button-less iPhone sounds cool but but what are they going to do with all the functionality the home button delivers? It does currently does the following

1. Home Button(Obviously) 2. Access Siri 3. Music App Controls—When the phone is locked 4. Accessibility Controls 5. Dismiss Control Center 6. Touch ID 7. Reachability

8. Screenshot.

I'm sure they can be replaced with "Gesture and Swipe Soup"

Hey at least we'll have a (mostly) bezel-less display which is a win to someone at Apple for some reason.

9. Hard Reboot

10. DFU mode

On the capacitive touch iPhones these functions use a combination of the power button and volume rocker instead.

Worried they're too busy chasing the industrial design dream of an entire screen surface that usability and sensibility is being thrown out of the window.

Normally I'd have faith but honestly things are getting weird over there.

Let's see what they do about the iPhone SE. Its success already appears to be an issue for Apple (lower margins) and a radical redesign of the flagship version could steer more people towards the SE (esp if it receives an update). Wouldn't be surprised if they discontinue the SE.

I remember reading that the reason for getting rid of the home button is that certain cultures around the world strictly do not use it, out of fear that it might break and require repairs. Instead, they use the on-screen accessibility button to replace the features of the home button.

The fear of using the home button has gotten so bad that even store employees are recommending to use the accessibility button and advise against pressing the hardware switch.

They already got rid of the actual physical switch in the iPhone 7. It's now a touch and pressure sensitive area that uses the vibrator to make it feel like it clicks.

I was just going to say that same thing. Unfortunately, the chains of habit are generally to small to feel until they are to hard to break. Even with this change in hardware, how many will change this ingrained habit of theirs?

This fear is well founded. Assuming that a person doesn't accidentally crack their screen the first thing to break on an iPhone is the home button. Long time heavy users of iPhones almost always have to resort to the accessibility buttons.

I believe this was true of the first few generations of iPhones, but is no longer the case

I have never encountered this myself nor heard of it happen to anyone I know.

You have now. That's -exactly- why I use the onscreen accessibility menu.

I figure, given how many times a day I use the home button, if I can half that, I double the lifespan of the device (over my previous iDevice, on which the home button stopped working & I thus had to throw out).

One outlier doesn't translate to "long time heavy users of iPhones almost always [do]".

I worked in an office made up of mostly Indian people and I can confirm they used the on-screen accessibility button instead of the physical button.

Yes irrespective of that blocking the real estate, I've seen a lot of people using it for the first most belief that the power button's life extends since used less and then proximity of the on-screen button is relatively closer than the power button. Even people use it to activate siri rather than home button.

My mechanical home button always broke around the 20 month mark... combined with the shrinking battery life it always gave me a reason to upgrade. Now with the 7's non mechanical button and armed with a battery pack, i may never be forced to upgrade due to wear and tear.

That cutout on the front would be so non appleesque. I a sure I'll get used to it, but it seem like they should have found a better way to put it. I still can't stand that android watch that had a black bar on top or seomthing

Remember the camera bump?

I actually don't mind the camera bump. I don't see it and it does not bother me at all. Not sure why people make such a big deal out of it. Also if you put a case on your phone which 95% of people do - the bump won't even be noticeable.

Perhaps part of the reason is to make the iPhone look distinctive again?

Hmm, I'm not sure about the dock. I have iOS 11 on my iPhone 7 Plus and my 10" iPad, and I do like the dock on my iPad, but it's an iPad-only feature. I'm not convinced they'd exclude the "Plus" size phones from the dock but include it on an iPad and the iPhone 8.

I'm willing to be proven wrong, but I would expect that if the dock was coming to iPhones, it'd be in the beta for current large iPhones. As of right now, it's an iPad-only feature.

Seems like a logical progression. Why waste screen estate if you don't have to.

I hope this is not the case.

I love the elegant simplicity of the home button.

this part of the original iphone launch is one of my favorites:

"And on the front, there’s only one button down there. We call it the home button. Takes you home from wherever you are."

I think everytime there's a change being introduced fear and uncertainty have clouded initially but eventually we've gotten used it.

* New Flat Icons on iOS as opposed to the earlier skeuomorphic ones

* FB Messenger

* Snapchatish features on FB

* Windows 10

None of those radically changed the way you use it. Windows 10 changes many features but most users only use the browser anyway (plus Office at work).

Do we really think that on their flagship phone, they're going to remove TouchID and thus the possibility of Apple Pay? I can't see it making sense for them.

Pay with your face probably?

The rumor is that the sensor is on the back.

The flaw there is that then interferes with payment because your hand is in the way of the payment doodad - a lot of the ones in the UK that I've encountered are designed for flat contactless credit cards, not "phone with hand underneath".

so flip the phone over?

Does the NFC sensor work through the phone like that?

It has in my experience. Also, it works through the watch face of an apple watch

NFC is short range but not that short range. You usually need a finger on the back of the phone anyway just to hold it.

But for stability, it would need to be high up the back - I can't physically hold the phone stable and have my index finger sufficiently on the back for sensoring unless it's at least halfway up and central.

Also, having just tested, this completely blocks thumb usage - there's just no way it can be done!

I don't get it. I can comfortably hold my phone pinched between my thumb and index fingers at just about any location. The finger on the bottom just needs to be a little closer to the center of gravity. A sensor where my 6+ says "iPhone" on the back (about 1.5" above the bottom) would work fine. But even if the sensor was up high, so what? It'll still work if your finger is between the phone and the reader.

As for the thumb, just flip your phone over. Although this would suck if you need any visual feedback, obviously.

> I can

Yeah but you != me. And I am by no means the least dextrous person I know.

I can't picture how a lack of dexterity would prevent this. But even if it did, we're back to my original point about range: it's OK to have your fingers in between, it'll still work.

You can "pre-arm" Apple Pay before moving the phone close to the reader.

You still need your finger on the sensor when it actually triggers - difficult when the device you're interacting with isn't expecting a finger but a flat card.

Also, having just tested this, that would completely block usage of the thumb and, assuming I'm not some kind of deformed monstrosity, really limits you to just the index finger.

Does removing the home button have to mean removing TouchID?

Not strictly but given the problems of moving it under the screen and the problems of putting it on the back, where else can it go?

I've heard rumors that the scanner will be on the back of the phone.

Isn't that copying android?

From the latest leaks of cases and whatnot, this seems unlikely. None of the case mockups have cutouts for a fingerprint on the back.

Other rumours include touchID embedded in the glass and/or other forms of biometric authentication (visible+IR cameras and facial detection being the leading contender)

I was always curious if they'd do it through the apple logo on the back instead of a second cutout.

No. The main theory is that the sensors for face detection will be used for ID purposes since they couldn't get TouchID working _through_ the screen.

And if you have an evil twin?

I was going to say that I thought the banks had already vetoed facial recognition for payments such as Apple Pay but it seems Lloyds (UK) are trialling account login using it which isn't that far off.

Some articles suggested that Apple tries to embed scanner in the screen, and if they don't manage to do it, it'll be placed on the power button instead. Of course these are just rumours

There's no way it's going on the power button. It was an absurd idea that someone threw out there and people just keep repeating it. The surface is far too small, and such a mechanism way too complicated for the space available.

Don't Sony phones already have this working?

I really hope they embrace "shake to undo" or as I like to call it "break to undo".

That's such an absurd feature.

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