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

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

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Trump on phone
  • 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.

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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.

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