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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.

5 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 Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  2. First the 3.5 mm, now this?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  3. Designed in California by Bruce66423 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Where it never gets cold...

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

    It demands an offering of human flesh to work!