52 ms·

I knew this was true, as you can't click it when battery is off, but I still don't get it: how does it work, and why?

• jolux 7y ago
  How: haptic feedback using a weighted linear actuator. Why: I suspect because it debuted with the iPhone 7, the first officially water resistant iPhone, that it was a waterproofing move to get rid of possible ingress points.
  • culturestate 7y ago
    > I suspect...it was a waterproofing move I've always assumed it was partially about reliability and partially about saving space, since water-resistant physical buttons are fairly standard components. The phone needs to have some form of haptic motor anyway, and switching to a virtual button allows them to eliminate a complex moving part - removing one potential point of failure - while freeing up a few cubic millimeters of internal volume. Anecdotally, the home buttons always seemed to be one of the more fragile parts of an iPhone, to the degree that many people started to use the on-screen assistive touch dialogs to avoid wear and tear.
• saagarjha 7y ago
  Good haptics.
• chrizel 7y ago
  On the older iPhones, the home buttons got problems after a couple of years. My old iPhone 4 had this problem. They got unreliable in registering being pushed. I think that’s also the reason it makes sense to not be an actual hardware button. Less moving parts makes it more reliable and it’s more likely to work after many years.
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]