Apple is eliminating a feature from the iPhone X that 55% of people say they use
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No physical home button means no more fingerprint scanner, so won't be able to unlock your phone with the touch of a finger or thumb.
It also means no more "reachability."
For those who have never used the feature, reachability was introduced three years ago with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple's first larger-screen devices. The feature lets you navigate the larger display with one hand by tapping on the home button twice. It pulls everything halfway down the screen so you can reach everything using just your thumb.
Apple stayed true to the smaller phone screen for a long time. Even when Apple's competitors were already making larger-screen devices, Apple had barely changed the size of the iPhone. Apple Insider points out that Apple even made a commercial in 2012 pointing out that every corner of the iPhone 5's screen could be reached by the average person's thumb, meaning the phone was still great for one-handed use.
When the bigger screen did eventually come out, however, Apple needed an easy way to let people continue using the phone one-handed. Thus, reachability was born.
Business Insider
The feature isn't as well-used among older iPhone users, though. The study reports that 39% of those ages 35-54 use reachability, while 32% of those age 55 and up use it.
On average, though, 55% of those surveyed by comScore say they use reachability.
The feature may quickly become a thing of the past, but if you have small hands, not to fear: It may still be possible to use iPhone X one-handed. The phone's design differs from previous iPhones because Apple mostly eliminated the bezels, or edges, around the screen. Since the phone's face is almost entirely made up of the phone's 5.8-inch screen, the phone itself is smaller than the Apple's Plus models and likely easier to use without two hands.
If you're not sold on the iPhone X, Apple's other new phones - the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus - do have home buttons, which means both phones still have reachability. And if you miss the smaller design of Apple's older phones, you can still buy the iPhone SE, a $350 phone that looks like an iPhone 5s and runs like an iPhone 6s.
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