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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!
The iPhone 9 won't have a screen. This will at least double battery life.
Don't forget the search button. Apparently 4 buttons is too many for millennials, however.
Steve Jobs knew the importance of spare organs.
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. :-)
They're off the deep end of form over function.
It's still being done. Many of the current LG phones have no home button.
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.
If Apple puts that on the screen then they should except 1M+ support calls from users asking where the any key is.
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.
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.
There is no try...
They will be called eyePods
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
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 ]
You can only Retry, Abort, or Ignore.
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)
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(*) 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 ]
I think it's mostly just Samsung that still has hardware home/back/switcher buttons for Android devices. Most other devices use the built-in software buttons. I strongly prefer the software buttons myself, for two main reasons:
1. There's a fourth menu option for some apps that isn't anywhere visible on phones with hardware buttons (it shows up as three dots and displays a small pop-up menu on phones with software buttons). If I remember correctly, you long-press either the back or app switcher buttons to view it on phones with hardware buttons. I think the use of this feature is less common in modern Android apps, though.
2. Especially when using the device in landscape mode, I very frequently hit either the back or switcher buttons accidentally, which, depending upon the app, can interrupt my activity. This is the #1 reason why I switched my Samsung tablet over to Cyanogenmod, as there's an option to disable the hardware buttons (the other reason being I really don't like Samsung's custom skin).