From Guilherme Rambo (you might know him as one of the folks digging through the leaked HomePod update):
The concept of the iPhone lock button as the new home button has been floated around for quite some time. But Guilherme is not just guessing here. He is reacting to this particular string he encountered:
In a nutshell, that code at the top of that second tweet refers to a gesture to launch Siri from the lock button. Interesting.
I’m becoming less and less interested in rumors about this by the passing hour, since it seems obvious at this point that whatever Apple will announce in a week’s time will be consistent and functional.
I don’t think the two are related. If Apple drops the Home button, people will still need to manually invoking Siri from a locked phone, the Lock button is an obvious choice.
As well, it the Lock button becomes the Home button, what is going to do the function of the Lock button? That kind of change has no purpose, all it is doing is moving things around with no gain. Apple is removing the physical home button, integrating it with the screen. That is moving forward.
That would be very, very bad. Relying solely on facial recognition (rumor) would mean I’d have to remove my helmet and sunglasses (and maybe cap) any time I wanted to use my phone while on a ride.
Additionally, I am finding it less satisfying knowing what will be announced.
Call me crazy, but I enjoy the surprise.
I know one of the reasons that rumor websites exist is because of Apple’s secrecy. But it sure seems like there are a lot of people leaking information now.
No doubt in large part due to iPhones. Ah, the irony.
In any case. I have stopped reading about it as much as I can, which ain’t easy!
Loop and Daring Fireball are pretty much the entirety of my Mac rumour news, and if they never posted another, I wouldn’t lose any sleep.
And I stick to Loop and Daring Fireball since they both have a bit more cred in the insider link department.
Part of my balanced breakfast.™
Yeah, at this point rumors are more annoying that interesting. It’s one thing to speculate 4 months from the event. When the event is 7 days away my reaction is more “Shut up and let’s wait a week to actually see.” It also feels more like clickbait at this point (one reason I no longer visit 9to5Mac right before events).
Maybe it’s my large hands, but I’ve found the lock button directly opposite the volume buttons to be very awkward (for both sides, avoiding an errant press of the other). I hope this isn’t the only way forward, or they move it slightly up or down.
maybe the, ‘face scan’, is high enough resolution so if the sunlight is hitting you on the winter solstice the secret code is revealed (to the machine) and 38.1% of the time it works!
It would be more interesting to see a “rumor” of Apple putting back srm in the CLI. Yes, some people use this and do not like to add it back to the, ‘macOS’.
the top lock button was not a bad location …. your mileage may vary and void where prohibited.
I do like the iPhone 7 button setup … I am even used to the non button, “button” for the home button. The water proofing is nice too. Now if ALL of Apple’s other mobile and semi mobile products could be upgraded to water proofing (yes, this could be a thing for laptops/mac books).
Or you could just type in your passcode if you MUST use your phone while on a ride, you know, like you used to do? If that happens only 5% of the time, but you gain substantial new functionality for the other 95% of the phones usage, then the trade off is probably worth it.
Speaking of which…..uh, shouldn’t you NOT use your phone while riding on a motorcycle? That usage should be even less than 5%.
Or you could not buy this iPhone, and get the other new iPhones with Touch ID presumably still included. Let’s just wait for Apple to announce what they’re doing, at this point we have no clue how it works. All we know is that it will be in a different league from any other face/Iris scanning to date. Apple bought PrimeSense YEARS ago. This is something they’ve been working on for a long time.
1: bicycle, not motorcycle
2: right now, touch ID works fine. Forcing me to take my helmet and shades off or enter the code is a step BACKWARDS.