iPhone 7 Successor To Ditch 3D Touch Home Button With Screen-Embedded Virtual Button To Complement 2017 iPhone’s Bezel-less Facade

Apple debuted the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus sans a physical Home button in favor of a 3D Touch Home button that produces vibrations to make it seem as though users are really pressing a real button. Amid reviews painting the new Home button in a negative light, a new report is claiming that the Cupertino giant is looking to ditch the feature when it releases the 10th anniversary iPhone next year.

To quote The Verge’s Dieter Bohn’s opinion on the iPhone 7’s 3D Touch Home button: “It’s awful. On a MacBook trackpad, you get this uncanny feeling that you’re actually hitting a button. On the iPhone, the whole bottom of the phone just sort of “kicks” … It doesn’t feel like a button at all. It’s a bummer.”

For consumers who are hesitant to jump into the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus bandwagon due to the removal of the physical Home button, things are unlikely to get any better as the New York Times has learned that the 2017 iPhone is unlikely to revive the physical key and will likely introduce a new iPhone Home button for Apple’s 2017 smartphones.

According to the publication, unnamed Apple employees have revealed that the 2017 iPhone is going to have a “virtual button” directly embedded into the display of the handset, since the new device will not be coming with bezels in favor of a display panel that will span the entire facade of the smartphone.

MacRumors was quick to pick up the new tidbit and has since reported that this is very in line with the rumor that the tech giant is planning to manufacture a redesigned iPhone for the 10th anniversary of the successful smartphone line, and the redesign involves the addition of an edge-to-edge OLED display to the front of the device.

If the rumor and the new tidbit turn out to be true, then Apple will mostly be banking on a revolutionary iPhone that does not have a physical Home button nor a 3D Touch one, but a Home button that will be fused with the OLED display to keep the iPhone’s Touch ID functionality.

The news about the screen-embedded virtual button comes after it was speculated that Apple is planning to make the OLED display curved on the sides just like Samsung’s Galaxy Edge series, as per Apple Insider, who also noted that the upcoming iPhones could see the addition of iris scanning technology for a more advanced security system.