Despite the myriad of other new and upcoming smartphones on offer it’s still the Apple iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S3 (or S III) that are gathering the most attention. We’ve been following developments on both of these phones and a home button saga seems to be developing for the iPhone 5 and the SGS3.
Nothing has been confirmed for either of these upcoming phones yet as there have been no official announcements. Regular followers of iPhone and Galaxy S news will know how closely guarded Apple and Samsung are when it comes to letting the cat out of the bag. Nevertheless as always with major new products there have been a certain amount of leaks and also rumors that have led us to believe we know at least some of what is expected.
For the iPhone 5 for example we’re pretty sure we’ll see a larger display size, an A5X or even A6 processor, bigger battery and possibly LTE connectivity and the appearance of the next major Apple operating system, iOS 6. Looking at the Galaxy S3 some of the expectations include a 4.6 Super AMOLED Plus HD display, a quad-core processor, LTE connectivity, improved camera, 2GB of RAM and the latest Android 4.0 ICS operating system. We’ve heard plenty about all of these likelihoods and also many other factors such as face recognition and waterproofing but one thing we hadn’t heard much about until recently was whether the devices would feature home buttons.
Earlier today we reported on news that the S3 could sport a physical home button despite previous thoughts that this would not appear, following the trend of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. It seems this has caused a split within the design team as it had seemed likely that the home button would be ditched. It now seems that a compromise has been reached and that a rectangular home button in a smaller area below the display could be possible. Comments to our post so far are unanimous wth the desire shown NOT to have a physical home button on the Galaxy S3, preferring use of the touchscreen alone.
As for the iPhone 5, also referred to as the new iPhone, many imagine that the home button will still appear, as on the iPhone 4S, its predecessor. However there is talk today that Apple may surprise us and that the iPhone 5 may not feature a physical home button. Therefore it appears that the iPhone 5 may not have a home button when most imagined it would have and that the Galaxy S3 will have one when most thought it wouldn’t. Of course nothing is yet confirmed about these likelihoods but it will certainly be interesting to see what arises.
We’d like to hear your preferences regarding a physical home button vs. touchscreen use. Would a physical home button or lack of one, be a deciding factor in your smartphone purchase, whether you’re leaning towards the iPhone 5 or the Galaxy S3? Maybe your choice will be purely down to which one features a physical home button….or not? Send your comments to let us know your thoughts on this.