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Apple May Remove the Home Button On the Next IPad

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the death-to-the-button dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Steve Jobs is notoriously frugal when it comes to buttons so the latest rumor emanating out of Cupertino might not come as a huge surprise. Apple is reportedly planning to do away with the home button on the next-gen iPad and iPhone and replace its functionality with multitouch gestures. And as luck would have it, the newly seeded iOS 4.3 includes support for new multitouch gestures, one of which is the ability to use a four or five finger pinch to go back to the homescreen" The attached video demonstrates the new gestures for switching applications and demonstrates how you could function without the home button.

4 of 329 comments (clear)

  1. Fun for people by somersault · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Great feature for those with missing fingers!

    Okay okay so I'm just being awkward. But seriously, whenever I've used an iPad or iPhone, I've wished it had the Android "back" button. So much more convenient than hunting for application specific menus to get back to where you were.

    --
    which is totally what she said
  2. What if you crash? by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Not all apps are as stable as you'd like. You need something to press to exit to your home screen if your app decides it just wants to freeze...

  3. Being serious, by Kupfernigk · · Score: 5, Informative
    Any massmarket device needs to be usable with one finger. Multitouch needs an alternative and accessible one-finger backup operation. What happened to accessibility?

    A "get me somewhere familiar" button should almost be mandatory on anything without a keyboard.

    --
    From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
  4. It currently works on iPads only by YaHooL · · Score: 5, Informative

    On their What's new in iOS 4.3 page (You need an Apple ID to view link) they wrote:

    Test Multi-Touch Gestures for iPad - This beta release contains a preview of new Multi-Touch gestures for iPad. You can use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen; swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar; and swipe left or right between apps. We are providing this preview before releasing them to the public to understand how these gestures work with your apps. Test them and give us your feedback on the Apple Developer Forums.

    I attempted a 4-finger-pinch on an iPod-Touch-4th-Gen development device with the latest 4.3 iOS Beta. Beside of being a very uncomfortable thing to perform on a small screen, I didn't notice anything else happening.