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Apple's Next Year iPhone Won't Have the Home Button: NYTimes
The reviews for the Apple's new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are live today. The New York Times, for instance, has given the smartphone a fairly positive review. However, in the story, the reporter says that the company's next flagship iPhone won't have the home button (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; here's an alternate source). Instead, the display will serve the purpose of the home button as well, the report added. From the report:Apple is likely to continue making iPhones without headphone jacks, and next year's iPhone will have a full-screen face with the virtual button built directly into the screen, according to two people at the company who spoke on condition of anonymity because the product details are private.
and they can close off all the ports completely. let me take the phone under water and all that hoopla about removing the jack will be worth it.
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
Come on Apple, INNOVATE!
Early Android phones did this. The bottom row of the screen had a bar with a "back" button, a "home" button, and a "settings" button.
Table-ized A.I.
Try swiping the front face of your Android phone while the screen is turned off.
They're coming for your buttons too.
The Wizard of Jobs must have given Tom Cook two hearts!
The iPhone 9 won't have a screen. This will at least double battery life.
Instead of adding things they will take more away. Nice. I prefer the tactile feel of an actual button. A virtual one will likely have some gimmick involved like a delay to prevent accidental activation. How will you know where to put your finger for the fingerprint sensor? #fingerprintfailures #notafan #puttheplugback
I wonder if the other hardware switches are going away as well. If so, I also wonder whether there'll at least be a "paperclip hole" to reboot the thing if it locks up. As much as I'm not a fan of killing useful functionality just because Jony Ive says I don't need it anymore, how they implement this will be the interesting detail. If it were Google or Microsoft, I'd say this would be a good way to ensure the device is on in a low-power state perpetually broadcasting its location and usage data. So far Apple seems to have resisted a lot of this data mining stuff...we'll see.
As a lesson from another industry, Ford removed most of the physical knobs and switches from their cars when they first introduced MyFordTouch. Owners freaked out when the touch screen wasn't as responsive as they'd hoped, and some of the switches have come back over time. Altering consumer behavior can be very difficult even if your consumers are rabid fans who think you can do no wrong. :-)
Forget that. You should be asking, "Who needs an alternate way to wake the phone when the power button fails?" (...as it did epidemically on the iPhone 5...)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Anybody look at the "artist's concept" sketch in the article? I have a hard time taking any speculation seriously when their artist puts "Press any key to unlock" on a touch screen only device.
They're off the deep end of form over function.
Or wait will apple brake though differing priorities between Apple and the carriers. Or will bend over and let people get raped at $15-$20 a meg when roaming with a sim that can't be changed?
That means the touchscreen screen will have extremely high resolution, otherwise they will lose the fingerprint-unlock.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
When you said you wanted a thinner iPhone with better battery life. We listened and got rid of that ancient headphone jack.
When you said you wanted a sleeker iPhone, something that really said 'the future is here', we listened and got rid of the last button on the iPhone.
Now, when you say that the internet, social media and games are too much of a distraction from your life and job and family, we've listened.
Introducing, the iBrick. Sleek styling, not a single button to be found, infinite battery life.
It can't access the Internet.
No social media or games are supported.
It doesn't have a screen.
It won't even make phone calls.
The iBrick. The sexiest hunk of useless plastic you'll ever pay for. Coming this fall starting at $799.99, exclusively available through AT&T.
the Samsung fires may force an battery kill switch.
also an hard reboot / hard boot to recovery mode button is needed.
The current home button doesn't help much if the software fails. It's seldom able to interrupt a locked app or crashed phone. They do have a watchdog on the Home/Power combo. As long as they maintain that on the (presumably still there) power button, there's nothing lost. "Hold power for 10 seconds and the watchdog barks" is good enough to deal with a complete software lockup.
No buttons, Android did it. How is this innovating. Apple you are losing and losing fast. If Microsoft ever got it's act together you'd be in 3rd place.
20 years ago a good of friend of mine posited, that a good computer should have only two buttons:
His proposal made sense at the time, but Apple went beyond that with one, and are now, if TFA is to be believed, going for zero... Is not technology wonderful?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Having killed the rest of the electronics industry (can't find a single retailer in all of Greater Chicagoland that sells tabletop HD radios, having been told repeatedly, by high-end stereo places even, that "nobody listens to radio anymore") the so-called "smart" so-called "telephones" are now eating themselves into singularity. Everyone else even at the Linux meetings has one of those spy-machines that exclusively runs closed proprietary software. What the heck happened to reality? Is there anyone else left, immune to this brain-eating cancer?
Nobody cares about the blind egh ?
I was wondering if the Samsung fires might result in the return of user replaceable batteries. If the batteries in the Note 7 were user replaceable, people could have turned off their phones, waited for replacement batteries, and gotten those installed (or installed them themselves). Data loss would be zero and the inconvenience to the user would be minimized. Instead, the entire phone needs to be replaced which maximizes possible data loss and inconvenience.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Or a removable battery, which would be better!
You loved the iPhone for so many years and the past few iterations we've streamlined it like never before. Well...this year we're changing everything...again. This year we're discontinuing the iPhone name...as we've come up with a way to communicate with eachother, it's absolutely revolutionary. Let me present to you...the iBrain. With this innovation you will be able to communicate with each other in absolute real time. There's no icons to press to dial your buddy. With this ear piece unit that operates off your delta-waves, all you have to do is think about your buddy and a connection is immediately established where you can exchange the full range of your thoughts and ideas with him in naught but a flash of an eyelash.
And why use Facebook anymore? With the iBrain, you can share more than just the image of the food before you... you can share in the whole meal experience. You can share the entire experience of the artwork you create, the machines you build, your day to day living experiences are all fed directly to your friends and love ones. All with Perfect Integration. And you will integrate perfectly with the new iBrain. With the iBrain there can be no successful impedance!
Apple Executives were very vocal on the subject of how much courage it took to remove the home button from their phone.
In other news, other manufacturers celebrated their 5, 6, and 7 year "No home button on the phone" anniversaries.
Cut every cost.
On the other hand, these days when an app locks up, I can double press the home button to get the app selector screen and quit the frozen app by sliding it off the screen.
Now if the OS fails, sure, the phone has to be restarted. However, based on my experience with software home buttons with my Android devices, the real buttons tend to work better than the software buttons, mostly because you don't have to wait for the processor to respond to even click on the button reliably. Even if I have to wait for the interrupt, at least I managed to get it into the queue, whereas with the software button, I am not even sure it fully registered that I pressed it, even when it does eventually show up to press.
Of course, I have known for years that the real button has taken up a lot of real estate on iPhones and have been wondering when they were going to remove it to take back that space. That doesn't mean I think its a great idea.
As for removing the phone jack, I still think they should replace the audio jack with a second multi-use port because losing the extra port does remove capability from the phone and I am the sort of user who appreciates something a little bigger if it is more capable. The same reason I demanded that I get a beefier laptop for work than the slim one they gave me initially. Slim is nice, I am actually doing work with this thing, so make it thin, but don't take away capabilities and tell me you're doing me a favor.
The next one won't have a screen, and you'll have to buy goggles.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Apple iPhone 8 - no phone home ... button.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
To Apple Courage is not just a word, it's a noun.
I hear they're planning on supplying a home button adapter with the phone.
Ya, and the wireless one will be $169.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Sony claims prior art in fire-inducing lithium batteries.
(And "hoverboard"-style self-balancing rollwe's opinion?
"Under 100kWh. Meh. Amateurs")
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
iPHONE 9 TO DO AWAY WITH PHONE ITSELF. APPLE States it will be the lightest device they have ever sold!
Box contents: 100% Fresh hipster air
iPHONE 9 - THE BEST iPHONE EVER.
That's nothing! (literally and figuratively) Samsung is already planning to release the Galaxy H2, which is even lighter than fresh hipster air* because it's a sealed container of hydrogen**.
* provided that the ambient air pressure is at least 0.072 atm
** Keep away from fire. Samsung claims no responsibility for hydrogen explosions
has come to. News now is: marketing rumours about the iAnal flagship of a company that ceased innovating... how long ago again ? Ten years ? Imhotep, Archimedes and Einstein are turning in their graves.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Yes, we should eliminate all those things which are working great, so there are no ports, because... reasons
He just gave you a reason, smartass: so you can bring the phone underwater.
I have quite a few gadgets that can go underwater (not just splash resistant, but water resistant: full IPX7-certified immersion capable) that do feature ports.
Including the e-Book I gave present to my mother (Kobo H20) : that has ports - a microUSB charging/sync port, and a microSD card port.
(As long as the rubber cover is over them, and isn't currently open to swap the microSD card, this thing can survive 1m under water for half an hour)
That also includes my speaker (UE Megaboom): it has a microUSB and a 3mm Audio stereo analog jack and a huge honking battery rated at a whooping 200Wh.
Everything that Apple deems necessary to remove just to make their phone splash resistant.
And this speaker is not only resist spalsh but can be forgotten for some time at the bottom of my above-ground pool. And will keep playing music (though not very audible due to difficulty of transferring sound air->water->air again).
I gave also a photo camera as a present to my girl (Olympus TG-4) this thing is rated at 15m depth (you could go diving with it). And it still has a USB connector, a SD card port, and Audio/Video connection (though the port is digital : it's a micro HDMI, not analog jack port) and fast and easy end-user replaceable battery. Though for the record it use plastic doors instead of rubber covers to protect the ports.
So again, can you explain me why Apple needs to remove functionality that is used everywhere (just go to any student party and watch how often people plug their smartphones with their music playlists into the analog jack of whatever speaker system is laying around*) just in the name of making the damn thing splash resistant ?
Oh yeah, I know: their obsession of making the phone thin enough to slice cheese. A rubber port cover would stay in the way.
(It's the same company that obsesses with ridiculously small SIM card formats, even if the whole device isn't fitting directly in the ear - Lt.Uhura's style)
---
(*) Apple removing the audio jack from their hardware would be like removing the floppy drive from their "canddy" iMacs... before USB flash drive got available.
Currently only some portable speaker system feature bluetooth. Even less are hassle free (NFC-based "touch to connect").
There are tons of old speaker systems in student dorms only accepting analog inputs. (Or even more ironically: accepting audio from the old (non-lightning) Apple connector that isn't produced anymore).
Luckily Bluetooth to 3mm jack / -to stereo RCA (and most ironic: to Apple 30-pin) audio dongle are cheap from China over ebay, so eventually this situation might get more jack-less friendly.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Who needs hardware inputs for when software fails.
You can say that again.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
I mean is doing.
Their next iteration (Pebble 2 / Pebble Time 2) is *still* only bluetooth connected and with limited low-power processing.
But if you want to go smartphone-less, instead of trying to pack extra smartphone functionality into the watch itself (3G connectivity, Wifi support, whatever...)
they also develop the Pebble Core a small screen-less android powered wearable computer.
Essentially, the screen-less iPhone of your joke, but for real, and powered by Android instead of iOS (and not called the "iPhone Shuffle").
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
My Samsung Galaxy S7 has a home, power and volume buttons. And guess what, I use them all the time. Especially having a tactile home and power button is very useful for the typical quick turn on screen to check time or messages, and then turn off screen again. I also have 128GB SD card in my phone for storage, and use the headphone jack daily. But that is another story..
Well, Apple always loses the market eventually anyway. They make boutique goods for a high end market. Eventually, the iPhone was going to lose out as they attempt to monetize it by selling add-on crap like headphones and the like. Reducing the BOM on a device isn't going to squeeze out any more efficiencies for them, so they have to eliminate hardware, like the headphone jack and the button. Also, Jobs isn't around to tell them they are assholes anymore, so the inmates run the asylum.
This isn't a new thing, though. Apple has been going through these cycles for ages. Apple II devices, the original Macintosh, etc. The latest one was with the iPod. They took a perfectly functional device and tried to push it in a new direction with the Touch devices. I'll never buy another one because the Touch devices don't meet my needs. So they killed that market. But now the iPhone is due for a fall, and Apple is thinking they can make more money by doing this kind of stuff. They're wrong, but they'd almost assuredly get fired if they stopped "innovating".
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Tim Cook: "And after that we're going to remove the phone capability and put in 7 cameras."
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
More shit to buy and carry.
When I forgot my earbuds once, I went to the drugstore on the corner and $10 later had another pair.
That's not going to possible with the new version.
You still pissed they took lead out of gasoline?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Can anyone please explain? That seemed to be the only useful addition they did in the past 5 years.
Who needs hardware inputs for when software fails.
Precisely! After I get this iPhone 7 and a new iPad mini w/ more storage, those will be my last iToys. They can get rid of home buttons, volume buttons, rotation switches and all that in future models
Reminds me of Windows laptops getting rid of the button that could physically enable or disable a trackpad while typing
Or make iOS a VM in an Android phone
It will have telepathy built in, so that you can just think something, and the person at the other end of the line will know!
Here's why the whole "headphone ports are obsolete" concept is wrong (I will address the 'just use a dongle' retort after):
1. It is a data port. Yes, it can be used for headphones, but it is very often used as a data port for all manner of key add-ons like a Square card reader. To force companies to make an Apple only version instead of a 1/8 port version compatable with everything, Apple is guaranteeing more cost and annoyance for consumers.
Also, they just removed a port without replacing it with anything...so a device with two data ports now only has one.
2. 100 years of backwards compatibility. Backward compatibility is a major feature that makes people's lives and jobs easier. Having a universal port shouldn't need to be defended in such a manner...it's clearly one of the most usable features of a device: being able to use it easily with other devices.
3. Bluetooth audio is lower quality No matter what, even if Bluetooth were 2x its current quality, it won't be as good as wired audio. Bluetooth reduces audio quality and power.
4. Bluetooth headphones are not a replacement for wired Many, many people in a number of different jobs use headphones for much, much longer than the 5 hour advertised batter life. Just the people who use it for phone calls alone is severely underrepresented in these discussions. Everyone from attorneys to field workers use headphones 8+ hours per day or more and *cannot recharge them during the day*
"just get a dongle" - This is not a valid response. It is half a valid response...much like "lower taxes" is not an actual tax policy. Inherently, using adapters reduces functionality for several reasons, and everyone understands this fact. Responding to critics of Apple's 'jackpocalypse' by saying "Just get a dongle" is inherently disingenuous because it ignores the truth we all agree upon: Using adapters/dongles is not a permanent solution.
Removing a feature is not evolutionary or courageous; it is doltish and stupid, revealing a marketing-driven design process that guarantees bad design. You'd think Apple would learn from Microsoft and Sony's failures....
Thank you Dave Raggett
Like my Moto X Pure has had since a year ago?
Now that's innovation!
guess what kind of interconnect you could use with the most expensive headphones you can buy?
Professionals use 1/4 inch plugs and jacks. My pro headsets would need a 1/4 to 1/8th adapter (pros don't call them dongles) to attach to your toy smartphone. All smartphones are toys. So get off your high horse.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Is Apple Pay. They don't want people using the headphone jack credit card readers that come with other payment services with their devices. They want people to go through Apple Pay so they get their 30% cut..... It's greed. Plain and simple.