Touch volume buttons are very very useful, the ability to control volume just by feel is something that should not be dismissed for the sake of a misguided minimalism.
A physical "home" button is also useful for when a phone starts to hang/go slow. If pressing the physical button has no effect then you press the physical on/off button, if that has no effect you power cycle the phone.
If those first steps are software interrupts you cannot trust them when software starts to hang, so the only satisfactory option is to powercycle, which is less useful than being able to just get back to a home screen where the phone can better recover from whatever was causing the hanging.
The Edge has physical volume buttons on the side. We'll see if the lack of a Home button ends up affecting the UX or not; it depends on the responsiveness and resiliency of the OS.
Comments
Touch volume buttons are very very useful, the ability to control volume just by feel is something that should not be dismissed for the sake of a misguided minimalism.
A physical "home" button is also useful for when a phone starts to hang/go slow. If pressing the physical button has no effect then you press the physical on/off button, if that has no effect you power cycle the phone.
If those first steps are software interrupts you cannot trust them when software starts to hang, so the only satisfactory option is to powercycle, which is less useful than being able to just get back to a home screen where the phone can better recover from whatever was causing the hanging.
The Edge has physical volume buttons on the side. We'll see if the lack of a Home button ends up affecting the UX or not; it depends on the responsiveness and resiliency of the OS.