Donald Trump berates Apple CEO Tim Cook for removing the iPhone home button

• Donald Trump has attacked Apple CEO Tim Cook for removing the iPhone home button, which was removed in new models starting in 2017.
• He tweeted: "To Tim: The Button on the IPhone was FAR better than the Swipe!"
• Yes, you read that right.
• It's not clear why Trump is bringing this up now.

Donald Trump has launched a fresh feud against Apple CEO Tim Cook over an unusual topic: iPhone design.

On Friday afternoon, the US president fired off a tweet that slammed the technology executive over Apple's decision in 2017 to ditch the physical home button on the front of new models of iPhone.

Trump wrote: "To Tim: The Button on the IPhone was FAR better than the Swipe!" 

Since the first model in 2007, iPhones made use of a physical "home button" that took users back to the home screen. But a decade after it first came out, the 2017-edition iPhone X became the first to eschew the button in favour of swipe controls that required users to slide their fingers across the screen in various gestures.

It's not clear what prompted Trump to call out Apple's 58-year-old chief executive about the change now, more than two years after it was first implemented, and a White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment. But the reality TV star-turned-politician has been vocal about smartphone design in the past.

Throughout 2013 and 2014, Trump tweeted numerous times about his belief Apple should introduce a larger-screened iPhone - something the company did ultimately do, starting with the iPhone 6 Plus.

An Apple spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.