What Is Apple iPhone 8's 'Home Indicator' Which May Replace Proprietary Button?

Apple is likely to ditch the home button in the upcoming iPhone 8. Developer Steve Trougton Smith — who has been posting about a lot about the iPhone 8 features lately from his Twitter handle "@Steve T-S" — referred to the latest finding Tuesday morning in one of his tweets. He said the home button would be replaced with virtual 'home indicator.'

Most of the findings about the iPhone 8 features were shared by Trougton Smith following an anaylsis of the Apple HomePod firmware.

Read: Apple iPhone 8's 3D Face-Scanning Feature Revealed In HomePod's Firmware

The iPhone 8 users will also be able to hide the virtual 'home indicator' in certain context, according to Trougton Smith. Since the phone is rumored to come with an edge-to-edge display — that will give the users more surface area to work on — this feature will come in handy for certain functions such as watching videos on the device.

Touch ID, a fingerprint identity sensor, could be ditched permanently, the developer further said. This has been a standard feature since iPhone 5S. Trougton Smith earlier indicated the upcoming device would feature a face-recognition front camera that would replace the fingerprint sensor.

Several reports earlier indicated Apple was likely to go for a display-embedded fingerprint sensor, but that might not be the case as creating a display-embedded sensor, compared to a standardized edge-to-edge display, would create production line issues for Samsung Display — Samsung Electronics' unit that is making displays for iPhone 8. Samsung considered the feature for Galaxy S8, but decided against it for the same reason. Equipping the front camera with 3D image recognition may be far easier.

Read: HomePod Firmware Leaks More iPhone 8 Specs, Apple Smart Speaker Screen, Processor

Apple has remained silent about its upcoming device's features. However, the leaks and the developers' findings reported so far have given a fair idea about the device. It is said to have a 5-inch edge-to-edge display, somewhat akin to Samsung’s infinity display on Galaxy S8. The phone would also feature a much front better camera than its predecessors.

Instead of putting the fingerprint sensor at the rear side like Samsung Galaxy S8, Apple may not feature it at all in iPhone 8 as placing it at the rear side would diametrically alter the design philosophy that the company has been following so far.

Further, iPhone 8 is expected to have augmented reality based functions. The company has already released its ARKit to the developers to create AR-centric experiences. While this might be the highlight of the iPhone 8 software, the device is also expected to have health and usage-centric features along with pressure sensitivity that it would inherit from iPhone 7.

The rear of the device may be similar to iPhone 7, with the exception of a multi-sensor rear camera. It is expected to launch in September or October with a $1,000 price tag.