Leaked photos show re-designed home button for iPhone 7

Leaked photos show re-designed home button for iPhone 7

New feature is touch sensitive, claims the website, making the device 'smoother and faster'

Recently leaked images suggest that the iPhone 7, expected this autumn, will have a touch-sensitive home button.

The blurry photos were given to MobiPicker, which admits that they should be taken "with a grain of salt" but says the "probability of a touch-sensitive home button is high".

The site claims a flat, touch-sensitive button might make the device "significantly smoother and faster" to operate. Users would tap and hold for Siri, double-tap to see running apps – and so on.

The photographs show a slightly re-positioned front camera and proximity sensor – and narrower lower and upper bezels on the handset.

Forbes says there are three good reasons to believe Apple will make this change. First, the existing ­– physical ­– home button wears out, so much so that iPhones come with a software back-up.

Second, removing the button will make the handset easier to waterproof – it's rumoured that Apple is working towards an iPhone which can be dropped in water without risk of damage.

Third, Apple has been granted a patent for something called a "bulk amorphous alloy pressure centre" which looks very much like a touch-sensitive home button in the patent description, even down to the illustrated finger pushing it.

Last year, Digitimes reported that Apple was developing technology which would allow it to dispense with the home button altogether and expand the screen of the iphone to fill the entire front of the phone.

Forbes says LG is developing similar technology, which would mean the entire screen could be used as a fingerprint reader, adding security to the design – and hopes that Apple will make use of it, or its own version.