Unlike Android smartphones, the iPhone has only ever had a Home button.
Introduced in 2007 by Steve Jobs, the iPhone was a small revolution in many ways. Its multi-touch screen, a multi-function device, its Home button… Indeed, while most cell phones of the time had three buttons at the bottom of the screen, namely a function button, a Home button and a back button, the iPhone bets on sobriety with a single button, the iconic Home button.
If it will have a new function in 2013 with a fingerprint detector, Touch ID, since it will disappear in 2017 with the iPhone X, the Home button was once only used to return to the home screen, and that’s all. Apple never wanted to integrate other buttons to the right and left of the Home, without anyone knowing why.
At the time, all other smartphones running Android, regardless of brand, had a back button and a function button. Apple then acts as the indomitable Gauls against Android. But this is not anecdotal, and has a very specific reason.
Let’s go back to 2007, when the first iPhone was still in development. Steve Jobs, who had strong ideas on many subjects, wanted at all costs to include a back button on his iPhone to facilitate navigation in menus and apps. But including a Home button was definitely not to the liking of Imran Chaudhri, a user interface designer who had worked at Apple for 19 years and whom Jobs had full confidence in. According to him, adding more buttons would break the trust between the iPhone and the user. Introducing a back button would then make navigation unreliable and complicated.
Indeed, the back button of Android smartphones has several functions. If you are in an application and you have navigated between the different menus, the back button allows you to return to the previous screen. If you have moved from one application to another, it allows you to return to the previous app. Finally, it allows you to quit everything and return to the home screen.
Lots of uses for this button which Chaudhri said would cause a lot of confusion for the Apple customer. He then favors a software solution, in iOS, with a small arrow at the top left to return to the previous menu. If the user wants to switch between open apps, he only has to press the Home button twice in a row. Finally, pressing it once would be synonymous with returning to the home page. Manipulations to which the user would adapt very quickly, according to him.
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