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Comment by thetrendycyborg | Hacker News Reader

Which manufacturer copied the home button?

Samsung. They changed white square into a white rectangle and that's about it. Design patents are a low hurtle but they they could have at least used a circle/house/drooped the icon or something other than a box for home. I mean outside of the iOS reference what does a box / rectangle even mean?

http://www.phonearena.com/news/U.S.-version-of-Samsung-Galax...

And again, if they had two buttons and use a square for one of them then that's also fine. Or if it's an arrow that stands for play that's cool. But a white rectangle?

The new Samsung phones have no buttons at all on the front. How's that for simplicity? Box means box. It's a rectangle. Apple can't patent the rectangle.

Squares are rectangles. However, you will note that they changed the button format which suggests that they are they where treading a little close to Apple's design / long standing trend of having a single button. I still hate the fact that they use a single physical button to simulate more than one button based on how long you hold it down so IMO it's not really a benefit just an aesthetic choice.

Apple does the same sort of thing, but even more so. Tapping, holding, double tapping, triple tapping, tap and hold, etc. The home button is ridiculously overused, a consequence of less hardware holding more and more uses.

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