iPhone: Future of the Button

Tuesday was an eventful day for the history of the button. Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to four thousand cheering fans at Macworld San Francisco.

Wow. You probably know the story by now. Phone, iPod, photos, email, web, etc. But the biggest story is the touchscreen technology. On the front, just one button: Home. On the sides, a few more for volume up/down, sleep/wake and ring/silent. That’s it. The rest of the interface is a dynamic set of controls written with software. Only show the buttons you need at that particular moment.

Most devices coming out now are responding to the convergence of information and services by packing in buttons for every possible scenario. Phone, keyboard, media controls, it’s all good. Just add more buttons. Keyboards are the worse offenders. To quote Jobs:

The problem with them is… they all have these keyboards that are there whether you need them or not. And they all have these control buttons that are fixed in plastic and are the same for every application… And what happens when you think of a great idea six months from now. You can’t add a button to these things. They’re already shipped.

The solution is to make the interface dynamic, just like a computer screen. But instead of the mouse being the pointer, your finger is. Completely natural.

But is this the death or the evolution of the button? Yes. Touch controls are the wave of the future, for better or worse. The technology has arrived and it takes a company like Apple to show how it’s done.