Apple missed the home button on iPhone X to prevent failure
Apple's design boss says that they have to move on to new technologies in order to avoid failure on the market.
One of the major worries that Apple fans had this fall was — how will the world cope without the comfortable home button. Apple said during the launch event that the iPhone X will have a shorter learning curve as the new gesture-based iOS 11 is supposed to be easier than the previous iterations. And now, in an interview with Time magazine, they have actually revealed the real reason as to why they dropped the home button.
“I actually think the path of holding onto features that have been effective, the path of holding onto those whatever the cost, is a path that leads to failure,” says Ive. “And in the short term, it’s the path the feels less risky and it’s the path that feels more secure,” said Jony Ive, Apple’s design boss.
In plain English, he intended that Apple wanted to carry on with its tradition of being the trendsetter and leader in innovation. Apple feels that innovation is the only way they can survive in the market. Last year’s iPhone 7 missed the 3.5mm headphone jack — a move that was seen by the world as one of the biggest tech blunders ever made. However, as the world moved on, users, as well as other smartphone manufacturers, have adopted the idea of a single port for all the functions.
With the home button gone, Apple would lead the way for other manufacturers to ditch the home button and go for a modern gesture-based interface. People have shown a warm response to the new navigation method until now and it would remain to be seen if Google follows the suit and bakes-in gesture-based controls in the next version of Android.
(source)