iPhone 7 Home Button: How Does It Work?

This week the folks at Apple revealed a new kind of home button for the iPhone 7, one that no longer clicks. This is a non-moving home button for the iPhone 7 – making use of the device's built-in Taptic Engine. Force now works – not unlike the device's extra layer of touch sensitivity throughout its touchscreen. Apple used the words "force sensitive solid state" – which means, in a sense, that it's a lot less prone to breaking or wearing out.

This new home button has been reengineered to work similar to the previous iPhones in Apple's extensive line of devices, but to offer additional functionality on top. Users will be able to press the home button to activate and interact with a variety of features.

Quick Actions, Messages, Notifications, and Ringtones will just be the beginning of what this home button will be able to work with – with unique Taptic feedback – in concert with the iPhone 7's Taptic Engine.

Different amounts of force will activate different types of functionality.

Much like Apple's introduction of the Click Wheel back with the original iPod or the Force Touch trackpad for the MacBook, this new Home Button will be much more versatile than solutions that came before it. Apple suggests that Apple Pay will continue to work, obviously, as will Touch ID, and the button will allow users to activate Siri, multitask, work with "Reachability", and – yes, believe it or not – move to one's own Home screen.