Possible New iPhone 8 App Switcher Discovered Within iOS 11 Beta

Apple’s iPhone 8 and iOS 11 are both expected to be launched next month. However, it looks like a developer has discovered new gestures in iOS 11 that hints at the iPhone 8’s app-switching capabilities.

Developer Guilherme Rambo shared a video on his Twitter account showing off the app switcher. The app switcher appears to be triggered by new gestures, which may possibly be intended specifically for the iPhone 8.

Thanks to numerous leaks, there’s now information that the iPhone 8 won’t come with a home button or a Touch ID sensor up front. Instead, the device will have a bezel-less design with an OLED display covering the majority of the front of the iPhone 8.

Since the iPhone 8 won’t have a Touch ID/home button, iOS 11 would need a new set of gestures to bring up the app switcher. On current iPhones, the app switcher can be triggered by double clicking on the home button, or by pressing down on the left edge of the screen and swiping right.

One of Rambo’s video shows that the iOS 11 app switcher can be triggered by swiping up from the bottom of the iPhone’s screen. On the current version of iOS 10, swiping up from the bottom of the iPhone’s screen brings up the Control Center. Although the video doesn’t come with any audio or text, it’s possible that the new swipe up gesture for iOS 11 is also using 3D Touch, as speculated by AppleInsider.

Rambo’s second video shows that the Control Center can be accessed by swiping left on the iPhone lock screen. This gesture currently brings up the iPhone’s Camera app on iOS 10.

The developer says that he discovered the videos within the iOS 11 beta. He claims that the videos have actually been in the iOS 11 beta since May, but he only discovered them recently. Rambo also says that these videos could possibly be early software prototypes and may not even end up as the final software gestures for the iPhone 8.

If this is the case, Apple could still tweak and change how to access the app switcher and Control Center on the iPhone 8. However, this recent discovery does indicate that Apple is looking to supplant the absence of the home button with new gestures for iOS 11.

The iPhone 8 will be Apple’s first iPhone model to not come with a home button. This has raised a lot of questions on how the device will work, and more importantly, how will Apple implement its Touch ID fingerprint sensor technology.

The popular rumor right now is that Apple might completely ditch the Touch ID sensor on the iPhone 8 in favor of an advanced facial recognition technology. A source told The Korea Herald that the iPhone 8 would come with 3D sensors that can detect a user’s face “in the millionths of a second.” These 3D sensors are said to be present on both the front- and rear-facing cameras of the handset.