With the launch of iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, Apple has done away with the classic click-mechanism home button in favor of a “solid-state” pressure sensitive one that uses haptic feedback to mimic traditional button presses. This haptic engine, which Apple prefers to call the Taptic engine, responds to touches with subtle vibrations, giving the experience of movement.
The new “solid-state” Home button is supposed to be less likely to malfunction since it has fewer moving parts. But what do you do if the Home button on your iPhone 7 does actually fail? No, don’t chuck your phone away yet, because Apple has created a temporary solution for this eventuality.
MacRumors forum member Wayne Goddard (iwayne) panicked a bit after the display of his jet black 256GB iPhone 7 turned itself off while charging. After it was restarted, the phone’s haptic feedback began malfunctioning. At this stage, he saw a dialogue prompt warning him that the home button was in need of repair. At the same time, he was also presented with an alternative on screen home button for temporary use until the phone had been turned in to Apple for servicing.
This temporary virtual home button isn’t new; it’s part of Assistive Touch – one of Apple’s accessibility features that’s been available for several years. Yet, having it automatically enabled when the home sensor fails is quite fascinating. In the past, when Apple’s Home button failed, a user would need to go into the iOS settings and turn on the virtual button manually. Now with iOS 10, Apple has taken care of this detail.
The programming that controls the Taptic engine-powered feedback is deeply integrated into iOS 10. In fact, it looks like Apple’s latest iPhone is able to automatically offer a temporary workaround when its diagnostic software senses that the technology is malfunctioning.
Speculations suggest that Apple will ditch the iconic home button in “iPhone 8” and replace it with one built directly into an edge-to-edge display. However, it’s unclear if Apple intends to incorporate the same button-based recovery methods for instances in which devices freeze or stop responding completely. This home button feature is another (tiny) indication that Apple might be looking in that direction.
Conventional wisdom tells us that Apple has engineered this new Home button to eliminate a common point of failure. So, while the feature is technically hidden from everyday use most of the time, it can be turned on and is set to activate by default whenever the physical Home button malfunctions on the iPhone 7.