Apple May Remove the Home Button On the Next IPad 329
An anonymous reader writes "Steve Jobs is notoriously frugal when it comes to buttons so the latest rumor emanating out of Cupertino might not come as a huge surprise. Apple is reportedly planning to do away with the home button on the next-gen iPad and iPhone and replace its functionality with multitouch gestures. And as luck would have it, the newly seeded iOS 4.3 includes support for new multitouch gestures, one of which is the ability to use a four or five finger pinch to go back to the homescreen" The attached video demonstrates the new gestures for switching applications and demonstrates how you could function without the home button.
Home button will stay (Score:5, Informative)
Being serious, (Score:5, Informative)
A "get me somewhere familiar" button should almost be mandatory on anything without a keyboard.
It currently works on iPads only (Score:5, Informative)
On their What's new in iOS 4.3 [apple.com] page (You need an Apple ID to view link) they wrote:
Test Multi-Touch Gestures for iPad - This beta release contains a preview of new Multi-Touch gestures for iPad. You can use four or five fingers to pinch to the Home Screen; swipe up to reveal the multitasking bar; and swipe left or right between apps. We are providing this preview before releasing them to the public to understand how these gestures work with your apps. Test them and give us your feedback on the Apple Developer Forums.
I attempted a 4-finger-pinch on an iPod-Touch-4th-Gen development device with the latest 4.3 iOS Beta. Beside of being a very uncomfortable thing to perform on a small screen, I didn't notice anything else happening.
Re:Being serious, (Score:3, Informative)
you are coreect
http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2010/10/full-interview-austin-seraphin-on-the-iphone-for-blind-users/ [www.cbc.ca]
Re:Fun for people (Score:5, Informative)
Okay, see that right there? There's your first problem. "Around" somehow translates to "up"? "Around the other way" is "down"? That's not intuitive.
Ever used a volume knob before?