One of the big changes Apple made with the iPhone 7 is the Home button, which is now a “solid state” pressure-sensitive button rather than a traditional button that you physically press in. And while the iPhone 7 is only about a month old, we’ve now learned how you can continue to use the iPhone 7 when your Home button fails.
It’s been discovered that when your iPhone 7’s Home button fails, iOS 10 will display an onscreen Home button for you to use instead. MacRumors forum member "iwayne" found that fact this weekend when he powered his phone on after it randomly powered itself off.
After seeing the iPhone 7 display the message “The Home Button May Need Service” and “In the meantime, you can use the onscreen Home button below.” iwayne then restarted his phone again and says that the haptic feedback began vibrating three or four times per button press. When the phone was restarted again, it showed the above message again.
One of the reasons that Apple may have opted for the “solid state” pressure-sensitive Home button in the iPhone 7 is that since the button isn’t physically being pressed, there are fewer moving parts which means fewer parts that can break. There’s still a chance that something could happen to the iPhone 7’s Home button, though, so it’s good that Apple has included this onscreen solution when that happens.
