The home button on the iPhone has remained pretty consistent over the years, despite many rumors suggesting that Apple would eventually ditch it for a capacitive button which could reduce the number of broke home buttons that many an iOS user have become accustomed to. The latest rumor out of Taiwan has suggested that such a thing could happen in the iPhone 5S, Apple’s alleged next-gen iPhone, claiming that the iPhone 5S could feature a capacitive home button made out of sapphire crystal which will be used to help protect the fingerprint sensor underneath it.
This is a new rumor although the fingerprint sensor is one that we have heard before, and a rumor which has been fueled by Apple’s purchase of AuthenTec. This isn’t the first time Apple has chosen to use sapphire as they have used it for the camera lens on the back of the iPhone, one of the reasons being that it is pretty durable and hard to scratch, which we guess is pretty important since no one likes photos where the lens’ scratch marks can be seen.
Replacing the physical home button with a capacitive one is a pretty major design change, and looking at the history of iPhones, the “S” iPhones tend to feature upgrades under the hood, such as a faster processor, better camera and so on while keeping the current design of the device. Take this with a grain of salt for now, but we’re sure that many iPhone users wouldn’t mind seeing a capacitive home button, right?
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