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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.

26 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 Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

      Gosh, whatever will we do? Oh, wait. Problem solved. Funny enough, some first-world problems have a first world solution as well.

      Can we go back to bitching about the loss of the headphone jack, or is that already passé? I think we're just trying to find things to complain about at this point.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    2. Re:So? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 2

      One added value: it won't wake-up by mistake in your pocket (unless you get very happy)

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    3. 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.

    4. Re:So? by bloodhawk · · Score: 3, Informative

      did you not even read the summary. even iPhone 6's and certainly my galaxy worked fine with the gloves being sold that would allow you to use finger sensitive touch screens, that no longer works. In winter on my Galaxy I can enter a pin using gloves rather than a fingerprint. that is no longer possible with a 7 apparently.

    5. Re:So? by Gussington · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'd say they were ideal solutions if not for the problem of water resistance.

      Is this a problem? Samsung has waterproof phones with tactile buttons

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

      Great, let's all wear gloves that leave the most frostbite-sensitive part of the hand unprotected. And while we're at it, let's all switch to crotchless pants. I hear the iphone 8 will courageously require a...*ahem*..."DNA" sample to unlock. For maximum security, you understand.

    7. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      > Considering that the fingerprint scanner and the screen already needed meat, what's the difference?

      After learning that police can compel the use of a fingerprint to unlock a phone, no, I don't enable or use the fingerprint feature.

      Plus if I'm driving and I need to get my wife to unlock my phone while she's sitting in the passenger seat, it is going to be damn awkward for me and potentially illegal if I have to supply my fingerprint.

      Apple's engineers now appear to be getting lost without the direction of Steve Jobs. They don't know where to go or what needs to be innovated now.

    8. Re:So? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Stop being so lazy and just move to a warmer state you dumb fucks. Iphone its worth it.

    9. Re: So? by NotAPK · · Score: 2

      Have been flying around Germany the past few days. Every Lufthansa flight was prefaced with a warning about the Note 7 stating that it should not be turned on or charged.

      What amazing free publicity!!!

    10. 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.

    11. Re:So? by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 2

      Exactly. I have a pair of glove liners with conductive fabric sewn into the finger tips. Works well enough for simple things.
      Pro tip: Have the phone memorize the print of more than one finger in case you have a bandage on your primary unlock finger.

    12. Re:So? by DarkVader · · Score: 4, Informative

      Except it does work....

      http://www.imore.com/iphone-7-...

    13. Re:So? by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

      I use an HTC One, not an iPhone. I just think the hunt for complaints has gotten absurd. And besides, "courage" was the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a while, so I'm not sure the magic iField is properly affecting me.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  2. First the 3.5 mm, now this?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now I need to buy new headphones *and* new gloves?!

    1. Re:First the 3.5 mm, now this?! by stooo · · Score: 3, Funny

      >> Now I need to buy new headphones *and* new gloves?!
      You're holding it wrong.

      --
      aaaaaaa
    2. 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
  3. 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.
  4. Designed in California by Bruce66423 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where it never gets cold...

  5. The iphone can't be appeased with a mere offering. by Z80a · · Score: 5, Funny

    It demands an offering of human flesh to work!

  6. 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.
  7. That's a bigger problem than one might think by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    After all, any hipster would put on gloves before it gets cool.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  8. 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...

  9. 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.

  10. Sausage Stylus! by Greyfox · · Score: 4, Funny

    I heard a story a while back that there was a town where the people use sausages to operate their cell phone when it gets too cold. Having spent the last 6 months working with a mobile test automation framework, I think it would be easier to build an Arduino-powered robot equipped with a sausage and a camera. A mobile-testing abomination, part meat, part machine! Because fuck, Apple sure doesn't make it easy to test on their shit! Naturally, you'd have to replace the sausage every so often, when your sausage robot starts getting smelly. That's just a design consideration, really.

    --

    I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

  11. Re: As the rest of the screen... by hyperar · · Score: 2

    Still haven't figured that screen doesn't work with regular gloves huh? Don't worry, i'll wait, just try to get there faster