Tech journalists who got their hands on an iPhone 7 Wednesday sometimes felt uneasy with what they were touching.
The most off-putting feature seemed to be the Home button. The once satisfying click of the button has a new sensation thanks to a Taptic Engine. The response to its touch ranged from “awful” to “weird” to the more delicate “it will take some getting used to.”
“It doesn’t feel like a button at all,” Dieter Bahn of The Verge wrote. “It’s a bummer.”
Show of hands
Apple has made product rollouts a fall tradition and while fans, developers and journalists are eager to hear the news, there is more excitement with what follows: the opening of a showroom for those in attendance to get hands-on first impressions of new devices.
While holding and quickly playing with a device in a crush of humanity can’t provide the insights of a full, in-depth review, the first impressions serve as a signal to Apple users on whether to buy up or stay with what they already have.
Journalists got to handle the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, the Apple Watch series 2 and Airpods for wireless audio (and because Apple did away with the 3.5mm earphone jack as rumored).
The early consensus boils down to this: Improvements were impressive but nothing felt like a quantum leap in technology. Should you upgrade? Depends.
Not feeling like Home
“The first thing you’ll likely do when you get your hands on the new phone is fiddle around with the new home button,” wrote Brian Heater of TechCrunch. “It’ll take some getting used to. It’s not a bad sensation, but it’s certainly different. And (the Taptic Engine) is decidedly less satisfying than an honest-to-goodness physical button.
“It’s also one of those tradeoffs that probably brings more good than bad, with the button less prone to breaking and helping the handset achieve its long-awaited IP67 (waterproof) waiting.”
Chris Velazco of Engadget said, “Man, that new Home button is weird” and Bahn said it was “awful.”
Speaking of hands-on, the new jet black finish option looked handsome but once in hand, reviewers realized it would scratch and lose its gloss with layers of fingerprints.
“It took moments for my hands to reduce the phone to a smudgy mess,” Velazco wrote.
Gareth Beavis of TechRadar said the iPhone 7 shape felt similar to the 6 and 6s. Apple did improve on features already present but called its decision to go with a relatively unchanged chassis an “odd choice.”
“Apple prefers to let how well its phones actually work day to day sell them, rather than just busting out new specs left, right and center. However, after the recent dip in iPhone sales, we expected Apple to come out with something big and new, the great hope for its phone division that re-inspired the buying masses to go for the latest model.”
Ear-jacked
One feature that might hold them back is actually no longer a feature — the headphone jack. Apple provides an adapter so that you can continue to use your old headphones, but it actually prefers you buy their new Airpods, which retail for $159.
Photo: SlashGear
Beavis said Apple has limited the damage by including a converter in the box, but it “still gives pause to potential buyers,” especially those not all-in on Apple’s iPhone ecosystem.
The BBC’s North America technology reporter, Dave Lee, said the price is high considering how easy they will be to lose.
“I think that puts them at a bit of risk for someone coming up to you and pinching them straight out of your ear,” Lee said in a video review.
Chris Davies of SlashGear said Apple’s earbuds never fit his ears and doesn’t see the Airpods staying put either.
“I can all too easily envision one accidentally popping out of my uncooperative ears and getting lost,” he wrote. “Yes, you can listen to music or make calls with just one bud in place, but that’s not much consolation when you’ve lost half of your $159 purchase.”
David Pierini is a former newspaper writer and long-time photographer. Considered a luddite by most of his friends, they did not believe him when he broke the news that he would be writing for a technology website. He is fascinated by human nature and would love to cultivate stories about the people driving the tech bus. Reach out to him at [email protected].
31 responses to “iPhone 7 Home button may not be love at first feel”
I suggest Apple do away with the hands on area for you scribes. It’s just a way for the insider geeks to pan anything new that Apple introduces after five minutes of trying. I’m pretty sure that millions of regular users will take to the new home button as well as the no head phone jack like ducks to water. As usual, much ado about nothing by the insider geek crowd.
As in ducks eventually leave the water… I’m pretty sure millions of users are gonna switch phones. A lot more people rely on their phones to be media players than you think. Geeks aren’t the only music and audio book lovers.
i logged in just to thumb-up your post, JEBworks.
Jony… “the button has been around for 200 years. We had the ‘courage’ to remove it”.
I’m betting soon they’ll be removing the internal battery to make the phone even thinner and then sell us an external power dongle.
its one of the biggest points of failure on the iPhone, so why keep something unreliable?
The screen being smashed is one of the biggest points of failure on the iPhone, so why keep something unreliable?
There is a massive difference between mechanical failure and accidental damage you asshat!
You break the button on purpose? Both are damage to parts that are replaceable and should normally survive two years with standard use. Strangely, a lot of effort gets put into improving the glass, whilst with the button Apple just throws its hands up and says it’s all too hard and goes to an inferior touch version.
So you’ve been using the iPhone 7 long enough to know its inferior? Mechanical parts fail, and it most areas of industry (including you car!) contacts have been replaced with solid state where there is less chance of failure. You glass won’t wear out, unless you piss someone off enough and they smack you around the head with it!
I haven’t, so I have to trust the media who’ve gotten to play with it already and said it’s bad.
I’ve also got a lot of experience from the last decade of touchscreen phones and devices having haptic feedback to emulate buttons so can take an educated guess that it’ll be far inferior compared to a mechanical button, which again is borne out in the response from people who’ve used it so far.
This isn’t new technology – we already have equivalent tech in circulation and it’s laughable to say it’s better than real buttons. Just because things are better for the manufacturer financially doesn’t mean it is a better experience – stop being a doormat for Apple and have an opinion of your own.
Summation: “We want to see LOTS of changes to the iPhone but it’s all the same as it was in the 6s, except for the changes that Apple made, which we all hate.” Like all versions of the iPhone before it, it will be lambasted by the press as being awful and that Apple has finally met its doom, but it will sell like hotcakes and users will love it.
How shallow do you have to be to simply want a change to the outside case design just for the sake of change? I have an iPhone 6 and love the design, feel and functionality. I’ll probably opt for the 7+ for the distinctly better camera.
You have a lot of money to spend my friend.
Nope, I just spend what I have wisely.
“iPhone 7 Home button may not be love at first feel”
Oh boy, here we go. No iPhone in anyone’s hand yet, and it’s already falling under specious criticism. ridiculous.
The statement is based off the hands on time from the press that attended the event, so it has technically been in peoples hands
Riiiiight.
You don’t seem to understand how these press reveals work…. They do actually get to hold and use the devices.
I’m not sure about the new headphone jackless design implementation. Sure be bold and reduce the number of ports, but ensure there is a pass through option for connecting headphones when charging. Wireless will be choice of course, but now they have created a new edge case where if you are low on phone and headphone battery, you might be unable to listen to news or music via headphones until recharged. Encountering that edge case will be annoying and a step backwards.
Ummm my One Plus 3 has a haptic home button and I have no problems. Just more #FirstWorldProblems.
I think the airports look weird, that stem hanging down from ur ears look like earrings or a q tip stuck in there, and of course these things slide out so easily at least in my big stretched out ears- better off with other bt earbuds- or wired headphones with charging adapter (probably coming sooner than later)
I’m on a 6s but leaning strongly towards a 7+ 256 jet black w white silicone apple case and spiegen ultra thin clear case for days I wanna show the high gloss back
Why does the iPhone 7 have 2 set of speaker hoes at the bottom while the dual speaker is on the top and bottom?
In a year or so the majority of Android devices will launch with no headphone jack. In a couple of years headphone jacks will only be on low end devices. And in about five years or so kids will wonder what a headphone jack is and why we ever wanted one on a phone. Funny how tech works. Remember that extendable antenna on Star Tac?
Bingo
Which will be a real shame since they’ve still yet to enunciate any reason for the change beyond new adapters and accessories. Change when there’s no reason for it isn’t good for anyone except whoever is making money off it. Stop being such a gullible consumer.
Oh joy – Two speakers and Twice as loud – just what we wanted on a busy commuter train!
Just to point out, you spelt Dieter’s surname wrong. “Bohn” instead of “Bahn” :)
No more home button, no more headphone jack. Seems like in their quest for thinness they’ve gone from anorexic to full blown bulimic, they’re officially puking out internal components now. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they get rid of the internal battery next and replace it with an external power dongle. It’d be so thin, so much less, but so much more profitable.
Boo fucking hoo that “tech insiders” don’t like the new home button or the fact that the headphone jack is gone.
Will be pre ordering, I have the 6s plus and I get the new one every year so yup!
And I’ll be getting the new Iwatch as well, I currently have last years and need to get the new one of that as well.
And I won’t be getting the 32 gb, I’ll get the biggest. And I’m paying in full.
Same for my Iwatch getting the nicer one not the cheapest
And the bigger screen
And I’ll be staying up to pre order.