When it comes to the next iPhone, it seems that in many ways users will have to do without. Apple’s changing things up and continuing its long war on that most humble gadget component: the button.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has an excellent track record when it comes to iPhone leaks, reports that the new gadget will have a much different home button. Per the article: “[The] new models will have a pressure-sensitive button that provides feedback to the user via a vibrating haptic sensation rather than a true physical click, according to the people.”
In other words, it will look like a button and feel like a button but it won’t actually, you know, be a button.
Which, I have to admit, troubles me a little bit.
Some of it is psychological. Physical buttons and switches feel direct and can make you feel as if you have more control. If your touch screen is unresponsive, you know you can hit the power button and the side button on an iPhone and reboot it.
On a broader level, the revamped home button could make Apple devices harder to repair. Several Apple consumers complain about “planned obsolescence” – the idea that the firm makes things hard to repair so that it can make money on new hardware. It’s a bit of a tinfoil-hat way to look at things. But with no button and no easy way to get into a phone, we’re likely to see fewer ways for third-party businesses to be able to replace parts.
