While the new Apple iPhone 7 may have a new virtual home button (i.e. it is not a real physical button), a new patent from the company may reveal what we can expect in next year’s Apple iPhone 8. It seems that they will be borrowing the idea from Qualcomm and Android, and have an edge-to-edge OLED display that covers the handset's entire front, eliminating the well familiar home button in favor of a virtual touch-sensitive key.
The idea of having a virtual home button is not a novel concept for Android users, but for Apple it will be something totally new. The patent filing shared that the company intend to introduce capacitive sensing technology that works through gaps in space, letting Apple embed a Touch ID fingerprint scanner behind the display – similar to the Qualcomm Ultrasonic Fingerprint scanner.
Does this mean the physical home button on an Apple device will go away, like how the 3.5mm audio jack did on the recently launched Apple iPhone 7? We have to wait for 2017, and TechNave will be bringing more news on this subject soon.
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