In the last few years there have been a lot of rumours about Apple’s intentions to remove the Home button from iPhone Smartphones. This information is indirectly confirmed by various patents. One of them has recently appeared on the Internet and it looks like a really peculiar smartphone case.
The U.S. Office for Patents and Trademarks published the details of this new Apple’s patent. It describes a phone case made of elastic tactile material which is based on quantum tunneling. This accessory allows creating a case with touchscreen areas. This new creation is likely to replace all mechanical buttons on the iPhone body. The touch-sensitive material could be used for turning the screen on and off, volume adjustment, and so on.
It’s worth mentioning that this isn’t the first time when Apple patents something like that. Earlier, the company filed an application which described a screen covering the phone edges. According to this idea, the edges should have been a place for all buttons including even controls for turning on frequently used apps or video operation.
In any case, in the future we may see a smartphone without any buttons on its front. Perhaps, mobile accessory market can help smartphone makers with that.
