Apple Interface Mysteries

The iOS and iPadOS Edge Cases Casebook

What’s beyond the edges of the screen has always been important in iOS over the years: the keyboard that slides up from below the screen’s bottom, the search field that slides down from the top, the Home screens that slide in from the left or right, and so on. But though the screen edges have always been interesting in terms of what lies beyond them, the physical screen edges have not loomed particularly large in Apple’s gestural interface repertoire until relatively recently, and it was because of another physical element: the Home button.

The Home Button That Vanished

Apple has never been fond of physical buttons. Aesthetic issues aside (and it is no secret that Steve Jobs and Jonny Ive liked clean, ...