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iPhone 7 Home Button Now Requires Skin Contact To Work (todaysiphone.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the human-touch dept.

Gone are the days of pressing the home button of your iPhone with an inanimate object. With the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, the home button can only be activated when in contact with skin. TodaysiPhone reports: The new "solid-state" Home button found in the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus appears to require skin contact to function. As the season gets colder, and as people put gloves on, users will quickly realize that attempting to unlock the iPhone with said gloves or with a sleeve of a shirt over your finger will not work. And with the new lock screen in iOS 10, there's no way to bring up the passcode screen without pressing the Home button. Tests have shown that using gloves designed for touch screens will get an iPhone 6s Plus to unlock but not an iPhone 7 Plus. As most of us know, the Home button in the iPhone 7 is no longer a physical button -- it sits flush and uses the iPhone's haptic feedback to give the sensation of a button press. Because the button requires skin contact, it's lead us to believe that the Home button on the iPhone 7 uses Touch ID to figure out if you're pressing the button. The report notes that Carl Hancock on Twitter was able to activate the Home button using gloves made to work specifically with touch screens. The reason (in a nutshell) why we cannot interact with the capacitive Home button when wearing gloves is because the gloves block the body's natural conductivity -- humans conduct electricity and Apple's new Home button (as well as most touch screens) has an electrical charge. On the flip side, the reason why the Home button registers our skin is because it distorts the screen's electrostatic field at the point of contact, thus triggering an action.

9 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. So? by sexconker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Considering that the fingerprint scanner and the screen already needed meat, what's the difference?
    To unlock you need to use your fingerprint, a password, a pin/pattern, or a slide with some meaty appendage anyway, right?

    1. Re:So? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 3, Insightful

      My 'droid has four physical buttons: Power, home, vol up, vol down. They are reliable, provide good tactile feedback, and comfortable to use. I'd say they were ideal solutions if not for the problem of water resistance. Judging by the number of advertisments I see recently promoting phones for their water resistance, this must be a feature in some demand.

      But then my phone is also a few years old, so it doesn't reflect the latest trends. And it's got a big crack on the screen where it fell onto concrete. Still works fine though. I don't need the latest super-phone: My old Galaxy Tab 4 7.0 is two and a half years old and it still does everything I could ask of it. It also gives me the right to taunt all iPhone users about their lack of an SD card slot.

    2. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Being from a colder state, I support this plan. I'll keep my android and the state can get rid of half the dumbasses moving here in the bargain.

  2. Re:As the rest of the screen... by OverlordQ · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Never, but the point is you can't even use the special gloves to do it.

    Tests have shown that using gloves designed for touch screens will get an iPhone 6s Plus to unlock but not an iPhone 7 Plus.

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
  3. Designed in California by Bruce66423 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where it never gets cold...

  4. Dead in Finland by blind+biker · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If this is true, this product is dead, here in Finland. Alternatively, Apple fanboys will have to live with frostbitten fingers. And not even their blind dedication to the cult of Apple will carry to those extremes. Right?

    --
    "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
  5. It's not a bug, it's a feature by thsths · · Score: 2, Insightful

    To press the iHome on the iPhone, you have to use proper iGloves, approved by Apple. Now in any Apple store...

  6. Re:As the rest of the screen... by hyperar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Then you use this NOVEL ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE CONCEPT called a LOCK SCREEN PASSWORD to unlock it.

    Emphasis added to help the slow people among us catch up.

    You call me slow and yet you can't figure out that the same procedure works for both old iPhones and the new iPhone 7, if you use a glove for touchscreens you can still use the LOCK SCREEN PASSWORD and use your phone regardless which one you own. If you are going to call people slow, at least make sure you're not slower.

  7. Re:First the 3.5 mm, now this?! by Feyshtey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you can run out and be a good little consumer sheep and buy the brand new iPhone, you can afford headphones and gloves.

    Apparently it's the price of inflating your ego. Or maybe a tax on vanity.

    --
    "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it,..." - Nancy Pelosi