This year Apple did something different with the iPhone by creating a home button that does not click. It’s probably the closest we’ll get to an iPhone without a home button, although there are rumors that in 2017, Apple’s iPhone could get rid of the home button once and for all, and that we can expect some kind of virtual button.
So the question is, with a virtual button, how on earth are we supposed to use technology like Touch ID? There is speculation that it will be hidden beneath the display and could use some kind of ultrasonic technology to read our prints, and now thanks to a recently discovered patent, it’s certainly starting to look that way.
According to the patent, it describes how Apple plans to make it so that a fingerprint sensor can continue to work even when placed underneath the display of the phone. However instead of ultrasonic technology, Apple proposes using electrostatic lenses to read the user’s fingerprint.
Of course there is no guarantee that it will be this particular patent that will make it into the 2017 iPhone, if the rumors are even true at all, however if anything it does corroborate claims that Apple is exploring the creation of an iPhone without a home button.